On Monday, Trump and his new administration were hit with a flurry of lawsuits from left-wing groups, including the likes of VoteVets Action Fund, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen, and the State Democracy Defenders Fund. In the telling of the plaintiffs, Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency should be considered a federal advisory committee, which stipulates certain transparency requirements such as public disclosure of taxpayer-funded meetings.

However, the arguments of the plaintiffs appeared to be weakened upon Trump later signing an executive order establishing the DOGE as a unit within the executive branch rather than it being an outside organization. And the watchdogs, who raised the concerns in complaints filed in federal court in Washington have their own secretive ties. They benefit financially from a constellation of progressive organizations, according to tax forms and Federal Election Commission filings.

“This is a legally frivolous lawsuit by left-wing political activists,” said Mike Davis, a conservative attorney and Trump ally who runs the Article III Project. “As the president’s executive order makes clear, DOGE is a government entity, housed in the Executive Office of the President and staffed by federal employees. The Federal Advisory Committee Act doesn’t apply.”

The flurry of lawsuits on Trump’s first day in office is likely a warmup to the winding legal battles that will be teed up between the Republican administration and left-leaning activists over the next four years — as the Resistance 2.0 takes shape with the support of billionaire donors. The DOGE is headed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close confidant of Trump after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to will him to the White House.

Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, notably benefits from lucrative government contracts — including from agencies that the DOGE is aiming to target over spending that Republicans determine to be politically partisan and wasteful. Along with renaming the U.S. Digital Service to the “U.S. DOGE Service,” Trump created a temporary DOGE group that will expire in 2026. “DOGE teams” will reportedly be assigned to agencies, as well.

Among the lawsuits was one filed by the progressive group Public Citizen, joined by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a Democratic-aligned legal hub formed last year by former Obama administration official Norm Eisen, and the American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union funded by paid dues collected from public workers.

But the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a charity registered with the IRS, only recently became a stand-alone entity.

Rather, it earned its stripes as a project of the North Main Street Fund, a New Hampshire-based group hosting a variety of programs related to racial equity, environmentalism, and other left-leaning agenda items. In May 2024, the SDDF filed to become an independent charity while retaining the same street address as its parent.

Organizations within the massive Democratic-aligned Arabella Advisors dark money network in Washington shuffled $1.6 million to the North Main Street Fund between 2018 and 2023, tax records show. Other left-wing groups, including Democratic megadonor Michael Moritz’s Crankstart Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and an anti-Trump legal group called the Protect Democracy Project, are among those that have pumped millions of dollars into the North Main Street Fund.

The SDDF, under federal law, is required to be nonpartisan. At the same time, the employees listed on its website are Democrats or have a long history of working for other left-wing nonprofit groups. Meanwhile, the organization’s 501(c)(4) “dark money” arm received nearly $1.6 million combined from the Open Society Policy Center, a lobbying shop funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros, and the Arabella Advisors-managed Sixteen Thirty Fund. The Sixteen Thirty Fund pours millions of dollars annually into Democratic-aligned political committees and ballot initiatives.

Public Citizen, one of the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also turns to anonymously sourced funding to stay afloat as it decries the influence of dark money in politics.

Its nonprofit arms rake in donations from the likes of the Tides Foundation and NEO Philanthropy, which serve as clearinghouses for wealthy donors to quietly influence politics. And Public Citizen pockets anonymous checks through other donor-advised funds, including the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and the Schwab Charitable Fund.

A second lawsuit over the DOGE counts its plaintiffs, among others, as VoteVets Action Fund and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

VoteVets rakes in millions of dollars from the Arabella Advisors Network, Tides, and the Soros family’s Open Society Policy Center. Its affiliated PAC receives funding from high-profile Democrats such as James Murdoch and Ron Conway — while also attracting the support of the House Majority PAC, which works to elect Democrats to the House.

CREW, the left-wing watchdog group, has received support in the past from the Democracy Alliance, a secretive club of progressive billionaires and donor-advised funds. One fund, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which steers the wealth of tech moguls, shuffles donations to CREW.

And in the lawsuit, CREW and VoteVets Action Fund are being represented by Democracy Forward.

Democracy Forward reeled in donations in recent years from the Tides Foundation, donor-advised funds connected to Fidelity and Vanguard, the Arabella Advisors-managed Hopewell Fund, and the philanthropy of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, tax forms show. Omidyar’s Democracy Fund supports other Trump 2.0 resistance efforts through grants to the Governors Action Alliance, the Washington Examiner reported.

“This is all nonsense,” said Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV), a freshman House member whom Trump endorsed. “If these folks are so concerned about transparency, we had a puppet presidency for the last four years, and they didn’t say a word. It didn’t bother them whatsoever.”

The other transparency lawsuit filed Monday over the DOGE was brought by a nonprofit legal group called the National Security Counselors. The entity, based in Rockville, Maryland, pulled in under $50,000 in revenue in its most recent fiscal year, 2023, according to the IRS tax database. It fundraises through PayPal.

“We don’t have any big-ticket donors,” ⁨Kel McClanahan⁩, the executive director of the National Security Counselors,” told the Washington Examiner. “Virtually all of our donors donate small amounts or use their employers’ charitable matching programs. We don’t share the donor list.”

Moore said the “hypocrisy of the whole situation is really quite laughable.”

“But,” Moore added, “I wouldn’t expect anything different.”