Politics
Musk’s Team Must Produce Documents to Comply With Open Records Laws, Judge Says
A federal judge found on Monday that Elon Musk’s government-cutting unit is likely subject to public disclosure laws and must promptly turn over documents to a group that had sued for access to its internal emails.
In his order, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Department of Government Efficiency Mr. Musk leads had all the hallmarks of an agency that would typically be subject to laws like the Freedom of Information Act. He said Mr. Musk’s team appeared to be exercising “substantial authority over vast swathes of the federal government,” much greater than other federal agencies that are subject to the law.
Judge Cooper required both Mr. Musk’s team and the Office of Management and Budget to turn over email correspondence between their offices that the group suing had requested, and to “begin producing documents on a rolling basis as soon as practicable.”
The lawsuit, brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, had asked the court to compel those agencies to turn those records over by Monday, a time frame the judge said was unrealistic. It had argued that the group’s internal records were of extreme interest to the public as Mr. Musk and his associates have planned cuts and layoffs largely in secret while laying waste to vast sections of the federal government.
The group’s lawyers had also expressed alarm about reports that members of Mr. Musk’s team had deleted or failed to preserve encrypted text messages on platforms like Signal and emails sent from personal accounts, in what it described as violations of other federal regulations set by the National Archives and Records Administration.
In his ruling, Judge Cooper noted those concerns, writing that “this evidence gives rise to the possibility that representatives of the defendant entities may not fully appreciate their obligations to preserve federal records.”
Donald K. Sherman, the deputy director of CREW, said in an interview that the court decision “opens the door” for the public to obtain documents from Mr. Musk’s government-cutting initiative that would help it understand how it is operating.
“This is the first court to find that DOGE is subject to the Freedom of Information Act,” Mr. Sherman said. “It would hopefully provide some measure of accountability for the reckless and chaotic way that DOGE has been operating.”
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has argued that as part of the executive branch, Mr. Musk’s office, which was formed as a temporary advisory unit, was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. It has also taken actions to try to insulate it from public records requests or judicial intervention.
At a hearing on Friday, Jonathan Maier, a lawyer for CREW, called Mr. Musk’s unit a “black box agency that’s designed and dedicated to drastically cutting federal spending at virtually any cost.”
“We’re kind of grasping at straws here, without information,” he said. “DOGE, in its conception, is a fast-moving, essentially, agent of chaos that’s affecting government functions throughout the executive branch.”
Mr. Maier argued that the request was urgent, pointing to proposals by Senate Republicans to formally adopt cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency has ordered through the rescission process, by which a president can request that Congress cancel certain funds lawmakers have appropriated.
He said that understanding what programs may have been targeted by Mr. Musk’s team depended on the public’s ability to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the goals and processes Mr. Musk and his associates have adopted.
“We’re barreling toward either a government shutdown or a last-minute spending bill by March 14,” he said. Using an abbreviation for U.S. DOGE Service, he added, “Viability, in terms of that bill — and from the mouths of the appropriators themselves — turns on Congress’s ability to get details on how the new U.S.D.S. operates, and whether it’s poised to prevent, at its option, appropriated funds from being spent.”
Andrew Bernie, a lawyer for the government, said on Friday that it could take the government three years to produce the all documents requested, even on an expedited basis.
During arguments on Friday, Judge Cooper pressed lawyers for CREW to explain how Mr. Musk’s team differed from a lobbying firm or other outside actors that might look to influence Congress’s appropriations process with recommended cuts.
“Those outside influences don’t have the weight of the federal government and the White House behind them,” Mr. Maier said.
Even before issuing the opinion, Judge Cooper told lawyers for the government on Friday to advise the two offices to begin preserving documents that could be subject to the Freedom of Information Act under his coming order.
In February, the White House tried to designate Mr. Musk’s office as an entity insulated from public records requests or most judicial intervention until at least 2034, by declaring the documents it produces and receives presidential records.
That designation has a special legal meaning under a law called the Presidential Records Act. The law shields from the public all documents, communication trails and records from the president, his advisers and staff until five years after that president leaves office. The federal courts have ruled that White House entities that merely advise and assist the president are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
When CREW filed a public records request law under the law, DOGE denied the filing, claiming that it is not an agency but a presidential records entity exempted from the open records law.
But Judge Cooper found it more likely that Mr. Musk’s team has acted as an agency conducting its own operations than as a mere advisory entity to the president.
President Trump’s executive order establishing Mr. Musk’s office gave it “a defined staff,” Judge Cooper wrote, adding that it “is likely exercising substantial independent authority.”
new video loaded: Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night
transcript
transcript
Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night
Hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis on Friday night. They stopped at several hotels along the way to blast music, bang drums and play instruments to try to disrupt the sleep of immigration agents who might be staying there. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said there were 29 arrests but that it was mostly a “peaceful protest.”
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The vast majority of people have done this right. We are so deeply appreciative of them. But we have seen a few incidents last night. Those incidents are being reviewed, but we wanted to again give the overarching theme of what we’re seeing, which is peaceful protest. And we wanted to say when that doesn’t happen, of course, there are consequences. We are a safe city. We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos here. We in Minneapolis are going to do this right.
By McKinnon de Kuyper
January 10, 2026
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners “in a BIG WAY,” crediting U.S. intervention for the move following last week’s American military operation in the country.
“Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.”
He added a warning directed at those being released: “I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them.”
The president’s comments come one week after the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve, a strike on Venezuela and capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro as well as his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.
US WARNS AMERICANS TO LEAVE VENEZUELA IMMEDIATELY AS ARMED MILITIAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS
Government supporters in Venezuela rally in Caracas. (AP Photo)
Following the military operation, Trump said the U.S. intends to temporarily oversee Venezuela’s transition of power, asserting American involvement “until such time as a safe, proper and judicious transition” can take place and warning that U.S. forces stand ready to escalate if necessary.
At least 18 political prisoners were reported freed as of Saturday and there is no comprehensive public list of all expected releases, Reuters reported.
Maduro and Flores were transported to New York after their capture to face charges in U.S. federal court. The Pentagon has said that Operation Absolute Resolve involved more than 150 aircraft and months of planning.
TRUMP ADMIN SAYS MADURO CAPTURE REINFORCES ALIEN ENEMIES ACT REMOVALS
A demonstrator holding a Venezuelan flag sprays graffiti during a march in Mexico City on Santurday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump has said the U.S. intends to remain actively involved in Venezuela’s security, political transition and reconstruction of its oil infrastructure.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)
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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this reporting.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.
Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.
Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.
“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.
Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.
Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.
Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.
“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”
Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.
The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.
Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.
Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.
“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.
Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.
Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”
Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.
Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.
However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.
Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.
Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.
Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.
Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”
Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.
It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.
The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.
Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.
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