The federal court system told staff on Saturday evening to ignore DOGE’s latest message, which demanded that federal employees submit a bulleted list documenting their recent activities.
Multiple staffers across the judiciary, including federal judges, received the DOGE message on Saturday, sources told TPM. The message was sent from an Office of Personnel Management email address.
In response, the judiciary’s Administrative Office sent a message addressed to all staff titled “OPM Email about Accomplishments.”
That message acknowledged that “some judges and judiciary staff” received the DOGE message, and told staffers that “we suggest that no action be taken.”
“We will be communicating with OPM about this email,” the message reads.
The Saturday DOGE email marks another intrusion by the executive branch on the staid, closed-off world of the judicial branch. In this case, it featured the Trump administration telling judiciary employees — including federal judges — that they must report a list of five weekly accomplishments. Musk said on social media that those who did not would face immediate removal, though the emails sent to federal workers did not go that far. It’s an absurd situation, and an example of the reckless approach that Trump and Musk have taken as they carry out a demolition job targeting wide swaths of the government. In this case, they have no legal authority over the judicial branch employees who received the messages.
Spokespeople for OPM and the judiciary’s Administrative Office didn’t return TPM’s request for comment.
OPM is an independent agency of the executive branch that operates like the human resources office for federal employees. It has frequently been the source of emails to federal workers associated with Elon Musk’s government-demolishing efforts. Earlier on Saturday, Musk had announced that the email would soon go out.
In some courthouses, employees told TPM, the local chief clerks acknowledged that some employees had received the message, and told workers that they did not need to respond. It’s not clear if there was any pattern to which judicial branch employees received the missives and which did not.
This is only the most recent example over the past month of the Trump administration’s ransacking of the executive branch infringing on the judicial branch.
In the first days of the administration, OPM emailed judiciary employees as part of a test of a new system that it said it would use to communicate with the entire federal civil service.
The judiciary is a separate branch, outside of the purview of the President and his courtier Elon Musk.
After the first email, judiciary officials told TPM that they tried to address the issue with OPM.
But since then, Trump administration chaos has continued to spill over into the judiciary. TPM exclusively reported this month that Trump executive orders and DOGE’s efforts to haphazardly slash away at the federal government had begun to impact the court system; judicial officials told staff that executive branch agencies were looking into terminating some judicial facility leases, and that the officials were trying to stem the damage to the judiciary of what was happening in the executive branch.
