No. of Recommendations: 1
No, I think that's right. The Treasury Secretary is the defendant in the case. He's the one who is being enjoined, and the injunction is against "granting access" to the data, not against accessing it themselves.
The TRO is rather interesting:
ORDERS that, sufficient reason having been shown therefor, pending the hearing of the
States’ application for a preliminary injunction, pursuant to Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, the defendants are (i) restrained from granting access to any Treasury Department
payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury
Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial
information of payees, other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job
duties within the Bureau of Fiscal Services who have passed all background checks and security
clearances and taken all information security training called for in federal statutes and Treasury
Department regulations; (ii) restrained from granting access to all political appointees, special
government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the
Treasury Department, to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any
other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable
information and/or confidential financial information of payees; and (iii) ordered to direct any
person prohibited above from having access to such information, records and systems but who
has had access to such information, records, and systems since January 20, 2025, to immediately
destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and
systems, if any; and further
The bolded part is what I think the media twigged to but it clearly states no Treasury access to political appointees outside the Treasury department. The problem is that the DOGE people are underneath an outfit created by Congress also.
In (i) the problem with this is "other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job
duties". That's so nonsepecifc an order as to make it nonsensical. After all the people looking for waste...are doing their jobs.
