The petition argues that discovery is pointless to evaluate the plaintiff states’ claims. “Plaintiffs allege a violation of the Appointments Clause and USDS’s statutory authority on the idea that USDS and Mr. Musk are directing decision-making by company officeholders,” it stated. “These claims current pure questions of regulation that may be resolved—and rejected—on the idea of plaintiffs’ criticism. Specifically, precedent establishes that the Appointments Clause activates correct appointment of officeholders; it isn’t involved with the de facto affect over those that maintain workplace.”

States: Discovery can verify Musk’s function at DOGE

The states’ lawsuit alleged that “President Trump has delegated just about unchecked authority to Mr. Musk with out correct authorized authorization from Congress and with out significant supervision of his actions. In consequence, he has remodeled a minor place that was previously accountable for managing authorities web sites into a chosen agent of chaos with out limitation and in violation of the separation of powers.”

States argued that discovery “might verify what investigative reporting has already indicated: Defendants Elon Musk and the Division of Authorities Effectivity (‘DOGE’) are directing actions inside federal businesses which have profoundly harmed the States and can proceed to hurt them.”

Amy Gleason, the individual the White Home claims is working DOGE as an alternative of Musk, has reportedly been working concurrently on the Division of Well being and Human Providers since final month.

“Defendants assert that Mr. Musk is merely an advisor to the President, with no authority to direct company motion and no function at DOGE,” the states’ submitting stated. “The general public document refutes that implausible assertion. However solely Defendants possess the paperwork and knowledge that Plaintiffs want to substantiate public reporting and determine which businesses Defendants will goal subsequent so Plaintiffs can search preliminary reduction and mitigate additional hurt.”

“Notably, Plaintiffs search no emails, textual content messages, or different digital communications at this stage, which means Defendants won’t must type by such exchanges for relevance or attainable privilege,” the states stated. “The paperwork that Plaintiffs do search—planning, implementation, and organizational paperwork—are available to Defendants and don’t implicate the identical privilege considerations.”

Discovery associated to DOGE and Musk’s conduct

Chutkan wrote that the plaintiffs’ “doc requests and interrogatories usually concern DOGE’s and Musk’s conduct in 4 areas: (1) eliminating or lowering the dimensions of federal businesses; (2) terminating or putting federal workers on depart; (3) cancelling, freezing, or pausing federal contracts, grants, or different federal funding; and (4) acquiring entry, utilizing, or making modifications to federal databases or knowledge administration methods.”