New York State Attorney General Letitia James took a social media victory lap on Friday boasting that her coalition of Democrat AGs have stopped the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive Treasury Department information.
“We just won a court order stopping DOGE and unauthorized, unelected, and unvetted individuals like Elon Musk from accessing people's private data and blocking federal funds. We will keep fighting to protect all Americans from this administration’s destruction,” James posted on X Friday evening.
Earlier on Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas extended a ban first put in place by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer that banned the DOGE team from stopping payments made through Treasury Department systems. Vargas did note in her preliminary injunction ruling that the plaintiffs had "not demonstrated that they are entitled to the broad and sweeping relief they seek, which would far exceed the scope of the present TRO (Temporary restraining order)."
On February 7, James led a group of 18 other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration gave Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative illegal access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system which resulted in millions of American’s sensitive data potentially exposed. “Giving the world’s richest man unauthorized access to our nation’s central payment system, and our most sensitive personal information, puts all Americans – and the essential funds they depend on – at risk," James said in a statment.
On Monday, DOGE praised the Treasury Department for finally implanting a TAS code to better track payments. “The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process). In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going. Thanks to @USTreasury for the great work.”
The Trump administration and Democrats in New York are likely to throw lawsuits back and forth for the foreseeable future. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department sued New York state officials over their alleged failures to enforce federal immigration law. The lawsuit names James, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and the state's Department of Motor Vehicles head Mark Schroeder.
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