DOGE shuts down having erased its own paper trail — and the fight over its records is just starting

The Department of Government Efficiency has formally wound down after driving the largest federal restructuring in decades, yet it left behind no public record of what it actually did. The Trump administration has argued that DOGE was merely an advisory body assisting the president rather than an independent agency, which conveniently places its files under the Presidential Records Act instead of FOIA. That distinction matters: presidential records aren’t subject to public disclosure until five years after an administration leaves office, making it effectively impossible to confirm the files are even being preserved in the meantime.

The risks are already concrete. A Wired investigation found that the National Labor Relations Board deleted DOGE team accounts before investigators could audit them — this after a whistleblower alleged the DOGE team had unrestricted access to alter and copy sensitive data. That deletion appears to have hampered a federal investigation and violated the Federal Records Act, undermining the main remaining avenue for transparency. Watchdog groups including CREW, American Oversight, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation are suing, arguing DOGE wielded real governing power and can’t hide behind an advisory label; courts have so far ordered records preserved while the cases proceed.

The broader stakes go beyond one defunct office. The White House has embraced an Office of Legal Counsel opinion declaring the Presidential Records Act itself unconstitutional and treating presidential papers as the president’s personal property to destroy at will — a position no prior administration, including Trump’s first, has taken. Because DOGE took direction from Elon Musk, an ultrawealthy presidential ally who was not a conventional government employee, the author frames the records blackout as a template for shadow agencies that could let private actors shape public policy with no oversight or accountability.