Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused a lower court’s order for discovery in a lawsuit against the Department of Government Efficiency days before it would have needed to produce documents.
The Supreme Court issued the order, signed by Roberts, on Friday afternoon, pausing a pair of orders from lower courts requiring DOGE to produce documents and take the deposition of U.S. DOGE Service Acting Administrator Amy Gleason. The pause will remain in place until further action by Roberts or the rest of the high court.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an appeal to the court earlier this week, urging the Supreme Court to block discovery in a legal battle over whether DOGE is subject to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Sauer argued the “sweeping, intrusive discovery” ordered by a federal district court would effectively give the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group seeking the records under FOIA, a legal win. He said CREW would get the type of internal information about DOGE it is seeking while the federal district court determines if DOGE is even subject to FOIA.
The Trump administration has maintained that DOGE is a presidential advisory board and not subject to FOIA. It said the lower court’s order unlawfully subjected a “presidential advisory body to intrusive discovery” and threatened “the confidentiality and candor of its advice.”
CREW, in its response to Sauer’s request to the Supreme Court, argued to the high court that DOGE was “highly unlikely to succeed on the merits” and that the desired relief would be “a ruling on the merits” of whether DOGE is subject to FOIA.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO STOP ‘INTRUSIVE’ DISCOVERY IN FOIA CASE AGAINST DOGE
“At issue here is a far narrower antecedent question: whether the court of appeals clearly and indisputably erred in refusing to disturb a district court order allowing limited discovery to ascertain DOGE’s agency status,” CREW’s Friday morning filing to the Supreme Court said.
The stay issued by the high court Friday afternoon temporarily halts the upcoming deadlines for DOGE to produce documents and for Gleason to sit for deposition. A federal appeals court had previously denied a requested stay of the orders.