“I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight,” Trump said during his speech.

Kelly McClanahan, the lawyer representing several plaintiffs suing DOGE, used Trump’s statement as “new evidence” to build her case against the initiative. The president’s comment “conclusively demonstrates that expedited discovery is urgently needed to ascertain the nature of the Department of Government Efficiency and its relationship to the United States DOGE Service, of which Amy Gleason is the Acting Administrator,” McClanahan said in a new court filing late Tuesday. 

The case is based on technicalities about Musk’s status as it relates to his work on DOGE, as well as DOGE’s legal status.

If Musk is considered the head of DOGE as a nonfederal worker, which McClanahan has argued, he will be subject to Federal Advisory Committee Act requirements. FACA requirements place a heavier burden on transparency and releasing information about what advisory committees are doing to the public.

However, if Musk is considered a government employee working for the White House, he will be exempt from FACA requirements. The fact that DOGE was created by an executive order that designated the task force as working “within” the government could further complicate McClanahan’s case, as FACA requirements only apply to advisory committees working “outside” the federal government. 

The White House has said Musk is not “an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service” and “is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.” Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House’s Office of Administration, has argued Musk is a senior adviser to Trump as a White House employee. 

Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of DOGE. 

But with Musk being the face of the government-cutting initiative, McClanahan has used comments such as Trump’s statement Tuesday evening to argue Musk should be viewed as the head of DOGE, a status that would bolster arguments that the task force is considered an advisory committee subject to FACA. 

Jerald Lentini, Joshua Erlich, and the National Security Counselors are the plaintiffs McClanahan is representing in a lawsuit that has combined several related cases against DOGE. 

Lentini and Erlich sent in applications to work for DOGE but were ignored by Musk’s team. Lentini and McClanahan are also attorneys for the National Security Counselors. 

TRACKING WHAT DOGE IS DOING ACROSS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Lentini is a Democratic member of the Manchester Board of Directors and was a regional get-out-the-vote director for former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign against Trump, according to CT Insider. 

Lentini, Erlich, and the National Security Counselors’ lawsuit isn’t the only legal challenge DOGE is facing. The task force was hit with a flurry of lawsuits after Trump signed the executive order creating the government-slashing initiative, including some that have been funded by “dark money.”