Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird defends Elon Musk and DOGE authority

Iowa Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird is leading 19 other states in defending the Trump administration against a lawsuit challenging the authority of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team to access sensitive government data.

Bird — a staunch ally of the Republican president and Musk’s efforts to ferret out government waste, fraud and abuse — filed an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief urging a New York federal court to deny a request by other states to block Musk and his team from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans.

“America voted for President Trump to clean up Washington and cut federal waste,” Bird said in a statement. “But while President Trump fights to deliver on his promises for the American people, his political opponents are weaponizing lawsuits to stand in the way.

“American taxpayers deserve to know where their hard-earned dollars are being spent. I am defending DOGE so that President Trump’s team has the tools needed to eliminate federal fraud and protect hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.”

A federal judge in New York last week temporarily blocked Musk and his team from accessing Treasury payment records or other sensitive personal data or confidential financial information, pending a hearing on the states’ request for a preliminary injunction.

Lawsuit challenge

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The 19 Democratic state attorneys general allege the Trump administration allowed Musk's team access to the Treasury Department's central payment system in violation of federal law. The lawsuit also argues that DOGE's access poses cybersecurity risks.

The states asked the judge to grant a temporary restraining order, alleging the Trump administration violated federal privacy and other laws by granting access to sensitive information to individuals other than Treasury Department employees with a need for access to perform their job duties.

Those employees, the lawsuit states, have passed background checks and security clearances and have had information security training called for in federal statutes and Treasury Department regulations.

The Treasury Department has said that Musk and his team have “read only” access to its systems and cannot affect expenditures.

The department's Office of Inspector General, however, on Friday said it was launching an audit of the security controls for the federal government's payment system, after Democratic senators raised red flags about the access provided to Musk's DOGE team.

Musk’s team has roamed from agency to agency, accessing computer systems and combing through budgets as its seeks to roll back the size, scope and spending of the federal government.

Another suit claims DOGE violates the law

Meanwhile, lawsuits have piled up claiming President Trump and DOGE are violating the law.

Democratic attorneys general from 14 states filed a separate lawsuit Thursday arguing Musk’s actions, with Trump’s blessing, are violating the law governing temporary organizations under the executive branch.

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Trump established the United States DOGE Service via executive order as a temporary organization with the purposes of producing recommendations on slashing federal spending and modernizing government technology.

Musk is a “special government employee,” according to the White House.

The Democratic attorneys general allege Trump has given Musk "unchecked legal authority" without authorization from the U.S. Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities, calling Musk an "agent of chaos" in the government.

Musk was the top donor to Trump and Republicans during the 2024 election cycle, and his companies, namely SpaceX, have been awarded billions in government contracts from the same agencies where he is looking for cost cuts.

Bird cites ‘partisan plaintiffs’

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Bird and 19 Republican state attorneys general argue in their legal brief that the lawsuit “presents an unprecedented attempt by openly partisan plaintiffs to usurp the President’s constitutional authority to manage the Executive Branch.”

“There can be no serious doubt that the President’s broad authority to oversee and control Executive Branch employees includes the power to authorize particular Executive Branch employees to access the computer systems of an Executive agency,” the states argue in the legal brief.

“ … A core component of President Trump’s campaign platform was to disrupt the status quo of the federal bureaucracy, to ensure that federal bureaucrats are accountable to democratically elected officials, and to eliminate wasteful government spending that has resulted from a long-standing lack of transparency and accountability.”

A 2024 report published by the Government Accountability Office estimated total direct annual financial losses to the government from fraud to be between $233 billion and $521 billion, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

The Republican states attorneys general allege New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat and lead plaintiff in the case, and her colleagues “seek to weaponize the federal judiciary” to stymie President Trump’s policy agenda and “nullify the will of the American voters.”

States that joined the Iowa-led brief are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah.

Bird filed and signed onto dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn various policies of Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration, and frequently pledged to use the state Attorney General’s Office as a legal firewall between Iowans and the Biden administration.

In 2023, she asked state lawmakers to approve nearly $1 million to hire six full-time equivalent positions to push back on “federal overreach” by Biden’s administration. Democratic state lawmakers criticized Bird’s budget request, calling it an attempt to use taxpayer-funded positions for politically motivated lawsuits.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com