Trump admin directs DOE officials to shield DOGE documents from disclosure

The Department of Energy has told employees that documents used by DOGE to assess the agency’s grants and contracts should be marked with “legal privilege” to prevent them from being disclosed under Freedom of Information Act requests. DOGE has supplied the agency with spreadsheets, which are to be completed by agency officials, to identify grants and contracts that could be flagged for termination or renegotiation. The department’s acting general counsel, David R. Taggart, outlined the DOE’s DOGE-related procedures in a memo sent on March 17, which was obtained by Axios. The memo directs political appointees to determine whether grants and contracts are “efficient” or “consistent with DOE policies and priorities.” Taggart told agency officials that they needed to be brief and consistent when filling out the spreadsheets due to the “heavy litigation environment” surrounding DOGE-related department cuts. Few corners of the DOE are expected to be immune, according to the memo. Even t ... Read full article.