Federal judge partially blocks DOGE’s access to Treasury financial systems; OPM asks agencies to identify career positions, low-performing employees

A federal judge Thursday limited access to a Treasury Department payments system that various Department of Government Efficiency surrogates had burrowed into at the behest of Elon Musk. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of labor unions against the Treasury Department and Secretary Scott Bessent, wrote in her ruling that the defendants cannot “provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.” Tom Krause and Marko Elez, two DOGE-connected “special government employees” of the Treasury Department, were granted “read-only” access to Bureau of Fiscal Service systems “as needed for the performance” of their respective duties, the judge ruled.

The Office of Personnel Management released multiple memos this week that continue the Trump administration’s push to shift agencies away from career employees and toward more political positions across the government. OPM asked agencies in a Wednesday memo to identify all Senior Executive Service (SES) positions and make requests to keep those people in career roles if the agency head believes the “President’s goals and priorities would be better served by keeping” the status quo. OPM said the Trump administration received reports that agencies near the end of the Biden administration redesignated SES positions that are traditionally held by noncareer employees, labeling them as positions that can only be held by career employees under the titles “general” or “career reserved.” That comes after another OPM memo released this week pushed to classify chief information officers as general employees.

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