DOGE Targets Freedom Of Information Act Requests

FOIA Files reports:

The lack of transparency surrounding DOGE’s efforts is off the charts. The DOGE strike team itself operates in secrecy. In the case of the CFPB, after the team members appeared at the agency’s Washington headquarters, they often refused to talk to employees or disclose their names, and carried out work in a basement conference room where they covered its windows in paper, according to a photograph of their workspace seen by FOIA Files.

Not even the Freedom of Information Act, it seems, will serve as a check on what Musk and DOGE are up to as they burrow inside federal agencies. Instead, the records DOGE creates and receives are considered presidential records. That means they wouldn’t be available to requesters until years after a president leaves office—assuming the records are actually preserved.

DOGE doesn’t just want to know when agencies receive FOIA requests related to its work. It also wants a heads up when there’s any attempt at oversight from Congress, inspectors general, even the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.

Read the full article. FOIA Files is a Bloomberg project. Hit the link (no paywall) for much more, especially about the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

A FOIA Files SCOOP: Elon Musk’s DOGE Targets #FOIA Requests at Agency Under its Purview

DOGE also wants to be notified when there’s any attempt at oversight from Congress, inspectors general, even the Government Accountability Office.

www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet…

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— Jason Leopold (@jasonleopold.bsky.social) February 14, 2025 at 10:34 AM