New York Attorney General Letitia James has spearheaded a coalition of 11 attorneys general in releasing a statement regarding their legal action against the Trump administration. The lawsuit challenges the alleged illegal granting of access to Americans' private information by Elon Musk and members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"Last week, Elon Musk and his team got into our nation’s central payment system in the Treasury Department, giving them unauthorized access to the Social Security numbers, bank account information, and other private data of tens of millions of Americans," stated the group.
The coalition took swift action by filing a lawsuit to prevent further unauthorized access. "To protect our states’ residents, we filed a lawsuit to stop the madness. Just a few hours later, we won a court order blocking Musk and DOGE from accessing Americans’ personal information and ordering the destruction of all the copies of records they had obtained," they declared.
Despite Musk's wealth, Attorney General James emphasized that legal boundaries remain firm: "Elon Musk may be the richest man in the world, but the law is clear: he has no authority to access your private information. The Constitution gives Congress – not the President – primary control over federal spending."
On February 7th, Attorney General James led another coalition comprising 18 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against these actions by the Trump administration. This suit contends that unauthorized access was granted to Elon Musk and DOGE concerning sensitive personal data via the Treasury Department's central payment system. Subsequently, on February 8th, a federal judge from New York issued a temporary restraining order preventing any further access by Musk and his associates while mandating immediate destruction of obtained records.
The coalition is now pursuing a preliminary injunction to continue barring unauthorized data access through this system. Joining Attorney General James are attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon.