The Trump administration has filed a motion to vacate or modify a federal court’s temporary restraining order that blocks the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and political appointees from accessing sensitive Treasury Department payment records.

In the motion, Cloud Software Group, Inc. CEO Tom Krause, who has been serving as a special government employee at the Treasury Department, argued that high-level political appointees must retain the ability to receive briefings on Treasury data when necessary.

“It is important that high-level political appointees, such as the Treasury Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Chief of Staff, and Under Secretaries, retain the ability to attend briefings concerning information obtained from the data or systems from Treasury employees with appropriate access to the data or systems in order to perform their job duties,” Krause stated in the filing.

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While acknowledging that these officials “do not ordinarily need to receive access to or review data from such systems,” Krause asserted that circumstances could arise that would require their access.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday, stating that “political appointees, special government employees and any government employee detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department” could not access Treasury payment systems or any data containing personally identifiable information.

The order also mandates that any individuals who had previously accessed such data must “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”

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The legal battle stems from a lawsuit filed by 19 state attorneys general against President Donald Trump, the U.S. Treasury Department, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration improperly allowed DOGE to access Treasury payment systems without authorization.

Kollar-Kotelly had previously issued a restraining order on Thursday, prohibiting Treasury officials from providing DOGE access to payment records within the Treasury Bureau of Fiscal Service, which processes approximately 90% of federal payments.

A day before that order, the Justice Department had proposed limiting access to the records to only two special government employees within DOGE, granting them read-only permissions.

The court approved the proposal, allowing only Krause and Marko Elez—an engineer and former Musk company employee—to access the data.

However, the situation changed with Saturday’s order, which revoked that access.

Elez, who had been named a special government employee in the Treasury Department, has since resigned.

The case originated from lawsuits filed by several government employee unions challenging the extent of DOGE’s access to Treasury data.

The unions argue that Bessent improperly permitted DOGE to review sensitive Treasury records as part of a government-wide evaluation of payment systems.

With the Trump administration now seeking to overturn the restraining order, the legal fight over access to Treasury payment records is expected to continue in the courts.

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