The judgements are the latest in the growing series blocking Trump and Musk’s disruption of the government.
Court judgements in the United States have blocked efforts by President Donald Trump’s team to access Treasury Department records and lay off staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Early on Saturday, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, from accessing Treasury Department records.
A day earlier, US District Judge Carl Nichols blocked an order that sought to put thousands of overseas USAID workers on abrupt administrative leave.
The judgements are the latest to seek to obstruct the Trump team’s concerted effort to disrupt government institutions.
With lawsuits from states, cities, Democrat legislators, labour unions and advocacy groups piling up, several orders for halts or pauses on White House moves have been issued.
DOGE, which is pushing for access to records across institutions, has ignited widespread concern among critics over the billionaire’s increasing power.
USAID has been a major target of the chaotic shake-up. All US aid has been frozen, and the agency, which distributes humanitarian aid globally, is being threatened with closure, or a reduction in staff from 10,000 to just 300.
The drive has triggered chaos in USAID’s global network and allegations of weakening US influence on the world stage.
‘Administrative leave in Syria’
Engelmayer’s order was issued after 19 Democratic attorneys general sued to halt the DOGE access to records that contain sensitive personal data such as social security and bank account numbers. He set a hearing for February.
“This unelected group, led by the world’s richest man, is not authourised to have this information, and they explicitly sought this unauthourised access to illegally block payments that millions of Americans rely on, payments for healthcare, child care and other essential programmes,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office filed the lawsuit, said in a video message released by her office on Friday.
Nichols’ “very limited” temporary order blocking the Trump administration’s changes to USAID was based on the concern that furloughed workers and their families would be required to move their families back to the US within just 30 days in order to have the government cover the cost.
In its rush to shut down the agency and its programs abroad, some workers had been cut off from government emails and other communication systems they needed in case of a health or safety emergency, Nichols said.
“Administrative leave in Syria is not the same as administrative leave in Bethesda,” the judge said in his order.
Still, he declined a request from two federal employee associations to grant a temporary block on a Trump administration funding freeze that has shut down the six-decade-old agency, pending more hearings.