Federal judge hands Musk’s DOGE a win on data access at 3 agencies
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(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency can continue to access sensitive records from at least three federal agencies after a federal judge in Washington denied a request to block Musk’s budget-slashing team from the Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
U.S. District Judge John Bates, in a late-night ruling, denied a request made by a group of unions and nonprofits to issue a temporary order blocking DOGE from the sensitive records maintained by the three agencies.
Elon Musk has repeatedly targeted Bates over the last week on X – including calling for the judge’s impeachment – after Bates issued a decision in another case ordering multiple agencies to restore public health data after the Trump administration suddenly removed it.
“There needs to be an immediate wave of judicial impeachments, not just one,” Musk wrote on Wednesday in response to a post about the judge.
The tech billionaire celebrated Friday’s ruling in a post on X.
The judge’s decision came down to the question of whether DOGE has the authority to “detail” its people to individual parts of the federal government where – as employees of that department or agency – the individuals associated with DOGE could legally access the sensitive records. To have that authority, DOGE would have to be considered an “agency” in the eyes of the law, Bates wrote.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that DOGE is not an agency — because it was created via an executive order — and therefore is not entitled to detail its employees to parts of the federal government.
Curiously, lawyers for DOGE have attempted to avoid the “agency” label during court hearings despite its “strong claim” to agency status, Bates wrote.
“This appears to come from a desire to escape the obligations that accompany agencyhood” — such as being subject to the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act — “while reaping only its benefits,” the judge wrote.
Ultimately, the disagreed with DOGE’s own interpretation of its status — determining it likely is an “agency” — and delivering it a surprise win by determining that DOGE has the authority to continue to access to sensitive records.
“For the reasons explained above, on the record as it currently stands and with limited briefing on the issue, the case law defining agencies indicates that plaintiffs have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency. If that is so, [DOGE] may detail its employees to other agencies consistent with the Economy Act,” he wrote.
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the use of a Signal group chat among top officials to discuss a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen — brought to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was “inadvertently” added to the chat.
Peppered with questions on the reported mishap during a meeting with his ambassadors at the White House, Trump came to the defense of national security adviser Michael Waltz and touted the military operation as a success.
“There was no classified information as I understand it,” Trump claimed. “They used an app, if you want to call it an app, that a lot of people use. A lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use.”
When asked if anyone would be fired as a result of the firestorm, Trump responded: “We’ve pretty much looked into it. It’s pretty simple, to be honest … It’s just something that can happen. It can happen.”
Trump attacked The Atlantic as well as Goldberg and doubled down on the success of the airstrikes.
“Well, I mean, look, we look at everything and, you know, they’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” Trump said.
Waltz said he had technical experts — rather than the FBI — looking into the matter and told Trump, “We’re going to keep everything as secure as possible. No one in your national security team would ever put anyone in danger.”
Earlier Tuesday, Democrats grilled Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over the use of Signal and the information discussed on the chat.
The intelligence officials, who were testifying as part of a previously scheduled hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also asserted there was no classified information included in the message chain.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a piece published Monday that he was added to a group chat in the commercially available Signal app in which officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Waltz, were discussing impeding strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Goldberg said he was apparently added to the chat by Waltz.
Facing questions from Senate Democrats on why information on attack sequencing or timing, as reported by The Atlantic, would not be considered classified, Ratcliffe said Defense Secretary Hegseth had authority to determine what was classified or not. Gabbard deferred such questions to the Defense Department.
Ratcliffe also said he believed national security adviser Waltz intended the chat to be “a mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high side or classified communications for anything that would be classified.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the panel, slammed the incident as “sloppy” and said others would have been fired for the same conduct. Warner also pressed officials to share the messages with lawmakers after they said they contained no classified information.
“If there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Republicans on the panel did not raise as many questions on the issue during the hearing, which had been set to focus on worldwide threats. Though Sen. Todd Young, a Republican of Indiana, said he would be asking questions about the Signal incident in a closed-door session.
Officials with the White House’s National Security Council said they “are reviewing” how Goldberg could have been mistakenly added to the 18-member group chat that included several of the nation’s top military officials.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the review on Tuesday, but said that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.” She added that no classified material was sent to Signal group chat.
“The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” she said.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement, which was sent to ABC News after first being published by The Atlantic.
The scope of the review, including whether it would attempt to determine why high-level discussions about military planning were taking place outside of official channels, was not immediately clear from Hughes’ statement.
Trump did not commit to changing procedure or cutting off completely the use of Signal within the administration as a result of the fiasco.
“I don’t think it’s something we’re looking forward to using again. We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, but, generally speaking, I think we probably won’t be using it very much,” he said.
Despite his effort to downplay the incident, President Trump repeatedly indicated he does not like this means of communication, saying he thinks it is best to be in the Situation Room for these conversations.
“Sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly,” Trump said.
“Look, if it was up to me, everybody would be sitting in a room together,” Trump later said. “The room would have solid lead walls and ceiling and a lead floor. But, you know, life doesn’t always let you do that.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Luis Martinez, Lauren Peller, Lalee Ibssa, Isabella Murray and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is taking aim at one of his predecessor’s final acts in office: preemptive pardons for members of the House Jan. 6 select committee.
In a late-night social media post, Trump claimed without evidence President Joe Biden used an autopen to sign the pardons and so he considered them “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”
Trump, who made retribution against his perceived political enemies a focal point of his 2024 campaign, said the committee members should “fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level” despite no findings of wrongdoing.
Despite his claims, legal experts told ABC News that Trump does not have the power to overturn Biden’s actions.
A president’s clemency power is vested in Article II of the Constitution and is “broad and virtually unlimited,” said Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor at American University and expert on presidential pardons.
Its few restrictions include that it can only apply to federal offenses and can’t interfere with the impeachment powers of Congress.
In 1929, a memo by the solicitor general to the attorney general on pardons held that “neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which Executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced.”
“It is wholly a matter for the President to decide, as a practical question of administrative policy,” the department said. “Nobody but the President can exercise the power, but the power having been exercised the method of making a record and evidence thereof is a mere detail which he can prescribe in accordance with what he deems to be the practical necessities and proprieties of the situation.”
The memo was cited in a federal appeals court ruling just last year that said pardons don’t necessarily have to be in writing.
And while autopens (mechanical devices used to automatically add a signature to a document) have come under scrutiny in the past, the Justice Department as recently as 2005 determined they were constitutional and could be used for a president to sign a bill into law in a study commissioned by then-President George W. Bush.
Former President Barack Obama used an autopen to extend the Patriot Act, avert a fiscal crisis and more during his administration. Other presidents, including Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, are also documented as having used the device or one similar.
“If the autopen is illegal, then many of the actions and regulations that presidents have done for the past four or five decades are null and void. It’s a ridiculous argument,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
“There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that a pardon must be signed without an autopen. Obviously, that is a 20th century invention, and earlier presidents had no access to such technology. Nonetheless, Trump has zero authority to undo a Biden pardon, just as the next president has no authority to undo Trump’s pardons,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina.
ABC News has inquired with Biden’s team and the current White House to learn more about their autopen usage but has not received comment.
Aboard Air Force One late Sunday, Trump was asked if any executive order or action from Biden that included an autopen would be considered null.
“It’s not my decision, that’ll be up to a court,” Trump responded, “but I would say that they’re null and void because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place, and somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also suggested, without evidence, that Biden was unaware of his signature being affixed to the pardons.
“Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge?” Leavitt said during Monday’s briefing.
Asked specifically if attorneys at the White House told Trump he has the legal authority to undo a pardon because it was signed by autopen, Leavitt said Trump was just “begging the question that I think a lot of journalists in this room should be asking.”
Biden issued the eleventh-hour pardons just hours before Trump’s inauguration. He spoke several times in his final media interviews about how he was considering such an option for people he feared could be targeted in the next administration, such as Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci.
What would happen if Trump tried to ignore or challenge Biden’s action?
“It could open a Pandora’s box if a sitting president tried to undo a pardon by one of their predecessors. The better rule would be that pardons — whether perceived as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decisions — should be final,” said Crouch.
ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Canadians who are in the United States for 30 days or longer and cross the land border will soon have to register their information with the U.S. government, according to a notice obtained by ABC News.
Foreign nationals who plan to stay in the U.S. for longer than 30 days will be required to apply for registration with the federal government and be fingerprinted starting on April 11, according to the rule, which was posted on the federal register on Wednesday.
Canadians are exempt from fingerprinting, which applies to other foreign nationals, according to an immigration lawyer who spoke with ABC News.
Traditionally, Canadians who cross the northern border by land and stay for longer than 30 days have not had to register with the federal government, but the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally change that rule.
Canadians who stay in the U.S. for 30 days or more and were not issued evidence of registration, such as Form I-94, at entry will need to complete the new Form G-325R through the myUSCIS online portal.
The rule would not require Canadians to apply for a visa but rather a different federal form to enter in the U.S.
Rosanna Berardi, an immigration attorney based in Buffalo, New York, told ABC News her firm has heard from many Canadians who have expressed “strong disappointment” in the new rule.
“It’s important to clarify that this measure specifically impacts Canadian citizens crossing land borders who intend to remain in the United States for periods exceeding 30 days,” she told ABC News. “Casual travelers visiting for tourism or shopping will not be affected. However, Canadian business professionals who regularly enter the U.S. for extended assignments will now face these new registration requirements.”
Berardi told ABC News that some Canadians are reconsidering their travel to the U.S. as a result of the “recent tensions” between the U.S. and Canada.
“Historically, Canadians have enjoyed visa-exempt status and have never been required to formally register their presence in the United States,” she said. “This development appears to align with recent tensions in U.S.-Canada relations, including the threat of the 51st state, the trade tariffs and other policy shifts.”
The Canadian Snowbird Association, which represents Canadian “snowbirds” who travel around the U.S. during the warmer months, said it is working with Congress to see if Canadians will be exempt from having to register.
