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Notes -
It's document 6 on this page.
I don't really understand the procedural issue. The president is the chief executive. Among other things, can view all classified material in the nation, can he not? The treasury is part of his branch of government, isn't it?
Why is his delegate not allowed to audit the treasury? Why do the procedures that he's not following actually matter? He has to appoint several people in various places and file the proper forms to do it, instead? What's the effective difference, other to frustrate the effort?
Classification is a construct by and for the power of the Presidency as Commander-in-Chief. It is specifically for national security information that the President has determined (or someone to whom he has delegated such power to has determined) would be detrimental to national security. Your statements are absolutely correct when it comes to information for which classification is the only barrier to releasing it to someone.
...but classification isn't the only restriction on sharing information. I haven't dug into this lawsuit at all, so I don't know what the specifics here are about, but I'll conjecture that there are statutory requirements on other types of information that don't give the President unilateral authority to share it. I'd have to double-check, but I think, e.g., restrictions on sharing individuals' tax information may restrict the President as well. That is, Congress could (maybe did) pass a law that prevents the President from, say, personally choosing to release his political opponent's tax records to the press. In this case, classification would have nothing to do with it. I don't think there would be an Article II argument that such a statutory restriction would be an unconstitutional impingement on the Executive power.
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The plaintiffs’ memorandum of law in support of the injunction is here. I can’t evaluate all of the claims in it (partly because I don’t see a memorandum of law from the defendants. Were they not allowed to submit one? Were they too busy? Did it just not get uploaded?). The Administrative Procedure Act is the big statute in these sort of cases, but it looks like they also cite some privacy statutes that I’m not familiar with. Ironically, the Administrative Procedure Act was passed to shrink the size of the administrative state, but its procedural safeguards are also held to slow down the pace of deregulation as well.
Lawsuit text
Based on the injunction order, it reads as based in risks of "disclosure of sensitive and confidential information" and "[making] the systems in question more vulnerable to hacking." This despite all of DOGE's supposed violations. Yeah, some of those don't necessarily qualify as risking "irreparable harm" but DOGE just chewed through USAID, the plaintiffs would have the argument to be concerned about the harm from sudden unconstitutional freezes of congressionally-apportioned funds. That argument was ignored. Maybe it's that narrow angle/narrow risk of judgment against thing.
Not that it matters. The executive can audit itself and investigate itself for any reason, "arbitrary and capricious" or otherwise, and with Musk's statement, it is otherwise. Treasury employees estimating a minimum of $50 billion a year in fraud gives them probable cause. So it sounds like all this injunction will result in is DOGE coming back with the DOJ as they announce a full forensic audit.
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I looked a little at the brief. The APA piece I would need to look more into but it is not the norm of my experience with the APA and I am dubious because they seem to misstate their claim re PII. One of the exception for disclosure of info is to people within the same agency. Per an interview by the treasury secretary Friday the DOGE aligned people looking at treasury payments were actually employees of treasury and therefore they were clearly covered by the exception.
Maybe this fact would’ve been pointed out if this wasn’t an ex parte proceeding but I’m pretty convinced the whole thing isn’t about law at this point.
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It was ex parte so one sided briefing.
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They should look into this judge. I bet there is some corruption. Also the issue of standing was effectively ignored.
This particular ruling probably wasn't corruption (whether or not the judge is corrupt) but political alignment. And yes, procedural hurdles like standing tend to melt away when the court wants to make the decision.
Oh i have no doubt there wasn’t direct corruption here. But if the judge wants to without a scintilla of legal reasoning prevent the executive from operating based purely on partisan hack grounds, then the appropriate response is “let’s dig into his life and find something to ruin his life.”
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