Cathy Gellis writes:
I’m going to keep pounding the drum for personal liability against Musk and DOGE, partly to scare them into backing off from their unlawful seizure of our government, and eventually to compensate us for the immense harm they’ve caused. So far it doesn’t seem like anyone has tried to personally sue them for damages, but several lawsuits are taking what might be a predicate step to establish the lawlessness of their claimed power, upon which liability claims would later be based. In addition to the AFGE litigation against OPM we already wrote about, which also names OPM itself for it wrongfully giving DOGE access to its systems, and the states’ lawsuit against the Treasury department for giving DOGE access to theirs, now we have (at this writing at least) two more lawsuits. But while those lawsuits were directed at specific agencies and the wrongfulness of Musk and DOGE’s misuse of power at these agencies, these new lawsuits come gunning for Musk and DOGE and their illegal seizure of power generally.
Although the lawsuits have some differences—including in plaintiffs, with one being filed by 14 states and the other by 26 current and former USAID employees and contractors—they both make the same argument: the power that Musk and DOGE have been wielding is constitutionally impossible for them to wield.
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