Well, that was expected, fast, and generally correct. 
Brick Wall of Reality
As expected in this corner DOGE Hits the Courts
President Trump and Elon Musk might be able to ignore the squawking of Democrats in Congress and the press, but they can’t ignore the courts. Two judges weighed in Thursday to temporarily hold up the effort by Messrs. Trump and Musk to shake up the government. Whether those court orders become permanent will depend on the law.
About 60,000 federal workers have reportedly accepted a buyout offer emailed last week, agreeing to “deferred resignation” on Sept. 30. Unions representing government staff argue this breaks the law. Federal Judge George O’Toole Jr. on Thursday paused the buyouts until the legal questions can be heard next week. “I make no assessment at this stage of the merits of the claims,” he said at a brief hearing.
Separately, federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an order Thursday limiting access to Treasury Department systems by a parachute team from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
While deferring a broader decision, Judge Kollar-Kotelly signed a temporary order, “with the consent of the parties,” to restrict Treasury’s ability to let outsiders peruse the checkbook. Two “special government employees” at Treasury who are affiliated with DOGE may continue their work, provided that their “access to payment records will be ‘read only.’” Ruling on a preliminary injunction to follow.
The American legal system has a good track record for sorting out such disputes, which is one reason not to panic every time Mr. Musk sneezes in the direction of another agency. If he and Mr. Trump want their economizing to stick, their actions must be legally defensible. If not, the two men will achieve much less than their frenetic energy suggests.
Judge Approves Limits on Sharing Treasury Data
Also note Judge Approves Limits on Sharing Treasury Data After Musk Allies Move In
The agreement, brokered by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, allows two Musk allies who have been named Treasury employees to continue to access a payments system containing the personal and financial data of millions of Americans.
But it prohibited the two men, Tom Krause and Marko Elez, from sharing sensitive Treasury data with anyone outside the agency. She also limited Krause and Elez to “read-only” access, meaning they can read records but not alter them.
The White House said later on Thursday that Elez had resigned after The Wall Street Journal inquired about his connection to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.
The agreement came after a lawsuit on Monday filed by a coalition of labor unions whose members are among the millions of people who receive payments from the federal government.
The deal doesn’t resolve the lawsuit, but rather is intended to “preserve the status quo” until Kollar-Kotelly can hear legal arguments, the judge said during a court hearing on Wednesday afternoon.
Is This Winning?
By overstepping bounds of authority, you risk giving up easy gains.
Whatever the decision, it will be appealed. Meanwhile, payments will go out.
If Trump flouts the courts, he can look forward to a third impeachment process that would tie up the second two years of his administration, if Republicans lose the House.
Losing seats mid-term is the norm, and Republicans have none to spare.
USAID Cancellation by Trump, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Details
I discussed some of this in my previous post USAID Cancellation by Trump, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Details
In the post I stated “Lawsuits are pending and Trump will lose. We should not be in this setup.“
Moments later came the court rulings (perhaps earlier and I was not aware of them).
I praised the effort of Musk to find suspect payments. And I still do.
But Trump had no legal authority to shut down the entire payment system. Nor did Musk have any legal ability to block transactions or shut anything down.
People Are Hard of Reading So Let’s Bold the Key Point
Sorry DOGE, but a blanket cancellation of all payments is unconstitutional.
USAID Critic claim that since President John F. Kennedy created USAID using an executive order in 1961, President Trump can do away with it via executive order.
However, the Congressional Research Service points out “Because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to abolish it; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID.“
Some of us (very few actually) want to see the President follow the law. I am in that group.
However, most people are hypocrites. The Left praised unconstitutional actions by Biden, and the Right is loudly cheering clearly unconstitutional Trump actions now.
I get it from both the Left and Right because I want both parties to follow the law.
Here’s a bit more legal analysis from Congressional Research Service.
Congress appropriates funds for USAID programs and operations in annual SFOPS appropriations; nearly all USAID programs are authorized through the FAA, as amended.
But If an Administration seeks to use appropriated funds for purposes not articulated, or in different amounts from what was previously justified for that fiscal year, including the transfer of funds between agencies, the Administration is required to notify Congress prior to taking the proposed action pursuant to provisions in the SFOPS appropriation.
President Trump acted outside the law. The court was correct to smack this down.
Contrast what has happened to what I said.
The Right Approach
What Trump should have done is allow Musk to search for questionable items and report them.
That part happened, but in an ugly way.
Then Trump could legitimately block those items. Also he could have directed USAID to look at and question every expense, flagging and temporarily those that are questionable.
Instead, Trump blocked everything except for “critical items” whatever that means.
The Unfortunate Reality
There is no advantage in releasing Musk in a China shop than releasing George Soros in the same China shop. No good will come from a reckless smashing of plates.
And the unfortunate impact might very well be the courts block everything when some very good things may have happened if Trump took a legitimate case-by-case look.
Lawsuits are pending and Trump will lose. We should not be in this setup.
Hypocrites are very willing to cheer Trump or Biden depending on what they want.
Most do not give a damn about the law when it is their side that’s breaking it.
And the result now is all payments will go out, including stuff like this.
My Comment
The Good
Rooting out fraud and ridiculous unauthorized payments is good. Moreover, there is grounds to fire everyone who sent out checks without questioning a single one.
The above image is a great example. In addition there is $8.2 million payments to Politico.
And there is strong evidence that Politico was paid to suppress stories on Hunter and Joe Biden.
The unseen is undoubtedly worse. It’s good to root out all of this fraud and corruption and prosecute when appropriate.
Now, all payments go out.
Is that winning?
I would rather block stuff like that and work with Congress to fix the rest and cut employees.
I was working in DC during the Reagan administration. Reagan bloviated about reducing the government, but government actually increased it by a huge amount by the end of his second administration. You could say he was a fraud but given the system, it’s difficult to make meaningful cuts in government. Reagan started like he was serious but the need to compromise with the democrats torpedoed his boat. Reagan wanted massive increases in defense and had to cut deals to get his precious weaponry. My guess Trump wants his agenda more than Doge cuts. Poor Musk, he will end up the fool.
Rabbit hole getting interesting:
In addition to propping up far-left corporate media outlets like Politico and the BBC with taxpayer funds, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled half a billion dollars to a secretive non-governmental organization operating a global news propaganda matrix.
WikiLeaks published the bombshell report in the overnight hours that shows the massive taxpayer-funded state propaganda network – operating as a shady NGO – called “Internews Network”:
USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.
The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.
What’s surprising is that anyone thought a second Trump term would bring anything but chaos and disintegration. I look forward to voters in the red states seeing their spigot of federal cash cut off, the schadenfreude will be delicious.
We want the disintegration of Leviathan. We don’t expect Leviathan to go quietly into the night. With exceptions, red state voters are happy to not live off the government teat.
Without their farm subsidies?
Get rid of those, too. Free farmers from the stranglehold of ADM, Conagra, Monsanto, etc. Stop growing millions of acres of corn and soy beans. Decentralize food production. Stop spraying food with gluphosate and pouring NPK fertilizers or manure infested with pharmaceuticals into the soil to make plants that grow big but lack the nutrients that they contained before BigAg became a thing.
J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years said the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency, referring to Trump’s termination of all but three hundred employees in the corrupted agency.
No. Way. To. Stop. DOGE.
You gotta wonder how a union has standing to sue. The union is an organization, not a real person. The union has no personal information. It’s members.do. You would think just like with the 2020 election fraud cases that a friendly court could rule that the unions themselves lack standing and toss the case.
Yep. The RULE (not the LAW) is….
never never never never never never never never EVER try to fire a government employee.
Ever!
FWIW. Elon wasn’t using H1Bs to do this. He evidently has a personal team of hackers. I had two friends get into accidents with their Teslas this week because the autodriver went crazy. Tesla laid off about 80% of their citizen workers in favor of H1B.
I am interested in what Elon did at treasury. If you just change some digits, you can easily say the US is no longer in debt but then claim you had cut enough spending to put treasury back in the green.
uhh.. it doesn’t seem like these guys are gonna let a court stop them.
Mass buyouts like the one proposed have a poor record. Anytime I have seen it, à few years later the government is realizing they need to retire them back. Meanwhile, the ones you bought out are either double dipping or deciding they like it more at home.
The swamp always wins, apparently.
“They wasted $100B of taxpayer money!”
DOGE gains access to Medicare and Medicaid system, exposes waste, rocks deep state.
“This is where the big money fraud is happening”.
DOJ to follow up.
Judge Kollar Kotelly (hmm, that name sounded familiar) handed out an injunction. She is as deep state scum as they come. Headed the FISA Court, appointed by Clinton, locking up and throwing away the keys on pro life protestors etc.
You gotta wonder how a union has standing to sue. The union is an organization, not a real person. The union has no personal information. It’s members.do. You would think just like with the 2020 election fraud cases that a friendly court could rule that the unions themselves lack standing and toss the case.
Do an Andrew Jackson and ignore the court. The Constitution is dead and the toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube.
Mish, on the USAID payments, I could be wrong, but I do not think they are going out. In fact, USAID is down to 300 employees. There may have been a lawsuit filed, but no injunction has been issued to resume payments to my knowledge as of 9AM EST.
If a judge does issue an injunction, it may not resume the payments, either. Injunctions usually seek to preserve the status quo until a hearing. They don’t normally force the adverse party to do something, but rather to STOP doing something. So they may try to enjoin Trump from firing any more USAID workers, but likely no judge would order them to turn the payments back on until the case is heard on the merits.
Authoritarian regimes give a hoot about legality and courts. Musk and Trump know their playbook. And Congress has been completely neutered by now. This is how authoritarians entrench themselves for good around the world. The surprise is why so many people still think America would never go down that path.
THE Democrat controlled Administrative State in DC is the 2.5 million employed in 400 agencies paid $575 million per day that has created the biggest fraud in world history against the American citizen and taxpayer—JAIL time when crimes are proven
Trump can make Musk a government employee and work in the treasury department to give him legal access to records.
Well, government employees not only have rights, but they also have duties and responsibilities. And stepping out of bounds has consequences.
DOGE has legal access to read-only. That is all they need.
Unions for Federal Workers another layer of parasitic waste floats to the top of the swamp. The battle is between the democrat party controlled Administrative State in DC and the American citizen taxpayer. The judicial system is hopefully willing to see the battle as it really exists.
Eh, they’ve forced both parties in the House and Senate hand on this.
Sure the courts can rule however they’d like. Now let them enforce their rulings.
Any party that goes along with re-establishing the payola is going to be massively on the wrong side of the U.S. taxpayer. We all knew such crap was going on, but pretended not to notice. Now the sewage has overflowed and you can’t ignore the smell and the mess.
Putting the genie back in the jar is going to be very difficult. Doing this during prime time “tax season” might have either been genius or just good timing, but with everyone and their cousin complaining about their rise in local/state/fed taxes along with the insane increase in property taxes based of speculative ‘valuations’ the pain is being felt. No one is in the mood to hear / see how their “taxes” have been spent on absolute trash and payoffs to media groups.
The ones that depended on scamming the system will of course scream the loudest about “fairness” and other platitudes. I’m not sure the public at large is buying it anymore.
Congrats, for using your head.
No corrupt court is going to be able to fix this for the democrats.
And Elon’s brother Kimbal Musk who just sold $73 mil in Tesla stock got to be on the BoD “BECAUSE OF MERIT”? My *SS!
ALL OF TRUMP’S CABINET IS CRONIES AND HERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT “EVERYTHING SHOULD BE MERIT BASED; AND DEI IS BAD”? HYPOCRACY IN THE HIGHEST.
Of course the bureaucracy would protect itself by entrenching through laws and what not. Congressmen were among the beneficiaries of the bureaucracy by appointing friends and relatives to the numerous sinecures deep inside the state apparatus.
Also a simple reminder that when lawyers with deep pocketed “clients” squawk about some constitutional transgression, Judges tend to offer up injunctions. They can’t decide cases on the spot, the clients may be suffering injuries, boom, injunction. As one judge was clear to point out, it says nothing about the merits of the case.
In society as a whole, wealth generation must exceed wealth consumption to survive. Recently, more of our economic growth has been in the government sector, which is nearly all wealth consuming activity, and less in the private sector that as a whole, generates wealth. The US will not solve its economic woes via more government, we must grow the private sector with emphasis on wealth building businesses of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and construction.
I believe the Trump administration is motivated to make our country economically stable and cutting government size and influence is the means to this end.
For a concise view of THE LAW I would suggest taking a couple of minutes with Mel Brooks as Moses in The History of the World.
This will be one of the first big tests to see how Bondi’s DOJ responds to this legal challenge.
Either way, look for MTG to submit a bill to end or significantly restructure USAID within 30 days. This is certainly one of those very public hot potato issues that will should result in GOP NO votes to be primaried. In addition, it’s a great first be a “good lieutenant” test for Johnson in terms of implementing Trump’s agenda of cutting government waste.
It’s one of those moments of truth / do-or-die opportunities.
Trump is rushing the system and will go as far he can get.
In the meanwhile he disrupts the machinery of the deep state to act against him.
He can sort the rest out later.
Good point, it is almost like Trump is turning the tables using “Rues for Radicles” on the radicles that have been working to undermine our country.
President Trump and Elon Musk might be able to ignore the squawking of Democrats in Congress and the press, but they can’t ignore the courts.
Uhh Yeah Trump can, he’s the President and has power of the stick, the courts have no authority just opinions.
As President Andrew Jackson said ““John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it” lol
Isn’t that where Marshall Law came from?
/s
The word is MARTIAL law.
Duh. Hence the “/s” tag.
If you can’t have fun with homonyms…
“Time will tell if DOGE is able to dismember this network. It appears to be a top priority for Trump, owing to the fact that it was this system that derailed his first term and nearly got him killed. At the same time, a lot of mortgage payments and ideological projects rely on that system. There will be a counterattack. The glimmer of hope here is that the oligarchs are backing the war on the blob. The blob controls billions, but the oligarchs control trillions and now they control the blob’s billions.”
I think Mish is right on this one. You got to do things by the book. Well, at least much of the American public is now aware, and justifiably upset. Trans programs in Tibet or wherever got more money than hurricane victims inside the US?
Trump was successful in rallying public opinion. The rest has to be done by the book, methodically.
Yes, but the book is no holy book, but was written by the bureaucracy parasitic on the state and in cahoots with Congress and their family members.
Things will be done by the book until they can’t. If we reach that point, God help us.
Current budget expires March 14. We’ll know then if Trump is serious or just playing charades.
Very sharp comment. All these court battles are a distraction. All Trump has to do to finally kill off USAID is tell Mike Johnson to zero out its funding in the next budget. That’s 5 weeks away … March 14th is when the current CR funding the govt at last years levels expires.
Similarly, he could ask for funding for the buyouts.
We will know very soon, for sure. I wouldn’t want to bet against another “you get cake and I get ice cream” deal where Trump’s tax cuts and other “Goodies” get exchanged for the status quo of 2024 funding levels, or maybe even more spending. If Trump really wants to cut, he’s going to need the House GOP to stick together to push through spending cuts over the Dems objections.
Trump’s not interested in cutting spending. He wants to cut people – he wants the govt employees to not be there.
What is legal or illegal is for out capricious courts to decide.
It’d be a damn shame if Sotomayor were to croak.
Ambrose Bierce defined the word “appeal” thusly: “In law, to put the dice in the box for another throw.”
So what? Judges can say anything they want. It will have zero impact on DOGE.
Violating the law is a criminal act. Trump has the ability to pardon all criminal acts.
Until Trump does something that will earn 67 votes for impeachment in the Senate, everything is on the table.
Those are the rules of our system.
This is why DOGE is seeking to directly control the payments systems. So they can do what they believe Trump was elected to do, even if some judges think it is illegal.
Exactly! Do those judges have guns? No. Does congress have guns? No.
They no longer matter.
Fuc-ing the FBI and CIA was stupid cause they do have guns and I’d bet lots of other lethal stuff.
Like Novichok and radioactive isotopes.
Another great post, Vboring! Let me tackle this: If he and Mr. Trump want their economizing to stick, their actions must be legally defensible. If not, the two men will achieve much less than their frenetic energy suggests.
Until the courts get to the Biden blanket pardons and address the legal status of those, no, Trump and Musk, if pardoned, do not have to follow the law. They can break the law in the past, present, or future and suffer no consequences.
If Trump says he does not want the USAID money, Congress should return it to the tax payers or use it to pay down the national debt. It is not the money of Congress; it is OUR money. Instead, Congress sues. Say what?
And there is a law in place that allows Congress to fund DNC causes and indirectly the DNC itself in the dark. The issue I have is not if Trump broke the law but how that law came to be to begin with?
Musk’s monkeys in the payments system?
If that’s what you want.
Landlords in D.C. are in trouble. Their fired FED tenants won’t find jobs around there and will have to re-locate. Most of those properties will remain vacant even if prices come down drastically. Also businesses will suffer. De-gentrification is going to become a thing.
I’m so waiting, Rent in Northern VA has gotten ridiculous.
No matter what Trump does, if Reps lose the House, it’s a pretty sure bet the Dems will push the impeachment button. The Reps should not have opened the impeachment can of worms back in the ’90s.
If you don’t get impeached, you’re not presidenting right. 2/3 of the Senate to convict and remove.
No one really cares that much about convictions. Maybe some crazies on the left or right depending on who is in power.
The goal is simply to tie up the president so he’s too busy going to impeachment hearings and has no time to do anything else.
For those that don’t like what Trump is doing it would be great to hear how you would solve a 2 trillion dollar annual deficit and 36 trillion dollar debt problem . Obviously past presidents and past congress allowed this mess we are in.
Cut social security and medicare. That’s $2 trillion easy. What else do you need help with?
Cut? Eliminate them!!! Right now there is a shortage of people to cut the lawns in a couple of months.
Run the slackers out of those rest homes and memory care wards, and get them some landscaping equipment, stat!
Your obviously to young to even understand what your saying.
Let Doge dig into the duplicate payments by Medicare first. That al9ne might get you halfway there.
medicare and medicaid fraud
Well, much of the fraud manifests as profits for the “vibrant”, “dynamic”, “wonderful”, “enterprising”, “hard-working” private sector!
First get rid of waste and corruption which is what Trump is doing. If he cut what you said the democrats would really howl . Hell they complaining about cutting the waste and corruption.
Says the teenager living in his parent’s garage. You do know most people never get back what they put in both programs. Those that do are unfortunate as well because they are sick and or die. Medicare premiums are higher than private insurance for wealthy people and they have already paid in many times what the average wage earner has paid.
Wrong. Most people get double, triple or quadruple what they paid into it. This is especially true of medicare. It’s unlimited healthcare that you get for peanuts.
But the real issue is people here hate big government then cry when we talk about cutting the biggest drain on the treasury.
And if you paid for it (more than you’ll ever supposedly get back), why is it such a drain and going bankrupt? Hint: you didn’t pay for it, people like me are paying for YOUR ss and medicare right now.
Just wait till you see the next record deficit we have planned!
Yep, and Trump contributed more than others to that pile of debt.
Mish,
You’ve left out some other interesting parts of the story…
First is DOGE “engineer” Marko Elez
Then,
https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/
Oh FFS
The boy was a wanna-be nazi, not a real one. Had to cut him loose.
I’d suggest you read the linked article (it’s in Substack). Because you are barely scratching the surface of what is actually occuring. The media is giving you the talking points they want you to hear. Granted, the WH is doing the same. But not to the same degree. They don’t need to. They have the upper hand and in the end, they will win most of the battles. To even hint that the Executive Branch cannot fire people is preposterous. Clinton not only fired a healthy chunk of govt employees, he also offered a buyout. No hue and cry back then from the Democrats.
Hundreds, if not 1000s of redundant programs. 17 trillion dollars in redundant, fraudulent and wasted spending over decades. 1/2 the national debt.
What you are missing is this. There was no other way to expose the rot. Others have tried with a scalpel. What was needed was a bludgeon.
The two judges that the whiners ran to via forum shopping were appointed be Democrats.
The gravy train is over.
https://open.substack.com/pub/eko/p/override?r=plkso&utm_medium=ios
I really enjoyed the story Eric. I wish the link you shared gave a few more concrete examples of a good bureaucracy at work. Potholes being filled in is nice, but is that it?
Judge will not let elected President send his designated people into to monitor the Executive Branch bureaucracy. What a concept.
There are too many dead bodies in that agency. Congress is very unlikely to work with Trump. I hope I am wrong
Echo. DOGE to Mars. USAID is like raiding the Church collection box. Surely there are better places to start raiding.
Disagree. You want to start with thing people don’t really rely on / care about. Foreign aid, FBI, CIA etc are thing most Americans don’t rely on for anything because they happen outside the country. So of course you want to start here because it’s easy to garner support from the general population.
Wait till they start doing department of health, department of education, military, social security, medicaid. Those are going to be epic.
I agree.
Not sure they’re looking for popular support, though – more like a show of power.
Musk looked for a corrupt little agency that could easily be shut down.
You’re supposed to be intimidated.
I really thought Trump owning the third branch of government would get more true believing judges on his side. He really needs to go back to dictator school. It’s another really bad start for the Mussolini in training.
Both of those judges are Clinton appointees. SCOTUS is all the matters.
But this kind of stuff will never get to SCOTUS because it’s easy clear ruling.
If SCOTUS refuses to take up a case it’s still SCOTUS settling the issue.
Freewill by Rush. Lulz.
What about the other five rulings reversing Trump’s brain-dead attempts to get done in days what normally takes months if we actually allow people to speak and think about things?
Rachel Maddow listed at least seven reversals today.
Who’s Rachel Maddow? A journalist? Surely you jest.
A very well paid “Mouthpiece”
So did “Hundreds” of others? That’s called “Parroting The Narrative” which is very, very far from actual “Reporting”
Going to get more popcorn. Be right back.
I already burned through my first case, ordering more on Instacart right now!
This is just starting and we’ll see how Uncle Elon handles it. It may be Anrew Jackson time: “The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it.”
Andrew Jackson
Trump will never ignore a Supreme Court decision.
His parrot said, “Fuck yeah!”
https://historyandmystery.org/interesting-history/andrew-jacksons-parrot-was-removed-from-his-funeral-for-cursing/