A federal district court in Washington, D.C., has handed down a decisive ruling in Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent – and the result is a major win for President Trump’s government efficiency agenda and common sense. The ACLJ filed an amicus brief in this case, and we’re proud to have been part of this fight from the beginning.
We told you about how a nonprofit organization and two labor unions – backed by the radical Left – sued the Treasury Department in a brazen attempt to block the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing federal payment system records. Their goal was simple: Use the courts to kneecap President Trump’s efforts to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal bureaucracy. Today, that effort failed.
Take action with the ACLJ. Sign our petition: Hold Governor Tim Walz Accountable for Somali Fraud Scandal.
What the Court Decided
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants – Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service – and denied the plaintiffs’ cross-motion entirely.
The court’s ruling turned on two critical legal findings.
First, the court found that the data-sharing the plaintiffs challenged was “intra-agency” – that is, Treasury Department employees sharing information with other Treasury Department employees. The DOGE team members who received access to payment systems had all been properly hired as Treasury employees. This is a crucial distinction. Sharing records internally within an agency, the court explained, is a routine operational decision – not the kind of sweeping external disclosure that triggers heightened legal scrutiny or warrants judicial intervention.
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Second, because the challenged conduct did not constitute “final agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act, the plaintiffs had no statutory cause of action. As the court made clear, internal data-sharing decisions are interlocutory in nature, and allowing courts to second-guess every operational choice an agency makes would invite judicial micromanagement of the entire Executive branch. That’s not what the law requires or allows.
The plaintiffs tried one last gambit – arguing that the court should exercise rare “ultra vires” equitable review even without a valid APA claim. The court rejected that, too, correctly noting that the Privacy Act and the Internal Revenue Code already provide adequate remedies if genuine wrongdoing occurs. The extraordinary remedy of ultra vires review simply wasn’t available here.
Why Our Amicus Brief Mattered
Our brief in this case argued precisely these points – that the plaintiffs were asking the courts to overstep their proper role and that the challenged conduct did not meet the legal threshold for judicial review. Today’s ruling sends a clear message: The law is on our side. Federal judges should not be used as instruments to obstruct a president from managing their Executive Branch.
We’ll keep fighting. And with your support, we’ll keep winning. Take action with the ACLJ. Sign our petition: Hold Governor Tim Walz Accountable for Somali Fraud Scandal.
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