A lawyer, Tom Renz, who actually read Trump's DOGE Executive Order and, expecting some illegal power grab, found it to be airtight. Turns out Trump and Musk didn't create anything. Obama did.
Obama created United States Digital Service (USDS) in 2014. It was meant as a bureaucratic patch job to fix the Obamacare website meltdown.
Fast forward to 2025. Trump rebrands it DOGE (United States DOGE Service). Keeps the acronym, keeps the funding, but gives it a whole new mission: Find the Receipts
Legally untouchable because it was already fully funded and operational. Trump invokes 5 USC 3161, which allows him to create temporary hiring authorities. DOGE teams get embedded inside every single federal agency. Each team consists of a lawyer, HR rep, a zoomer nerd, and an investigator. They report to DOGE, not the agency they're embedded in.
But wait, there's more! Trump invokes 44 USC Chapter 35, which governs federal IT and cybersecurity oversight. Since USDS was originally an IT oversight body, DOGE now has full access to all federal data systems. Yes, that’s right. All of them.
His executive order is written to block legal challenges. Includes language that overrides conflicting executive orders. Orders every agency to comply. Refusal means they violate presidential authority.
Congress can't defund it because it's not a new program, just a repurposed one. DOJ can't sue for overreach because Trump used existing laws exactly as written. Democrats trying to file legal challenges run into standing issues because DOGE operates within existing frameworks.
Obama literally built the perfect Administrative (read: Deep State) IT backdoor.
Trump and Musk just hacked the system and took the admin controls. Musk now has legal oversight of every major agency's internal systems. The Administrative State can't stop it without rewriting multiple federal laws.
They legally outplayed the system and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Obama created DOGE.
