MANHATTAN (LN) — A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday denied the government's bid to restore court-ordered anonymity to six DOGE agents in a civil challenge to the Trump administration's decision to grant a group of operatives broad access to federal systems of records containing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote rejected both arguments the government advanced in support of partial reconsideration of her April 1 ruling, which had ordered the identities of sixteen anonymized DOGE agents — previously identified in court filings only by monikers like OPM-1 — unsealed.
The government's first argument was that six of those agents, designated OPM-11, OPM-12, OPM-13, OPM-15, OPM-17, and OPM-18, were granted access to only one OPM system and never logged into it, making them more akin to "innocent third parties" whose privacy interests warranted greater protection. Cote was unmoved, noting the government had the opportunity to draw that distinction in its original opposition and chose not to.
"A motion for reconsideration is not a vehicle for raising arguments that could have been made earlier, nor for presenting a more refined version of a position previously rejected," Cote wrote.
She also rejected the distinction on the merits. The plaintiffs' claims, she wrote, concern the government's decision to grant certain individuals access to sensitive OPM systems and the circumstances surrounding that decision — not whether any particular DOGE agent actually logged in.
The government's second argument also failed. It pointed to a press release the plaintiffs issued on April 2, the day after the unsealing order, which it characterized as containing "threatening statements" that demonstrated the risk of harm to the six agents was not speculative but substantial. Cote concluded that the government's own timeline undermined that claim.
Rather than seeking emergency relief after the April 2 press release, the government waited until the evening of April 15 — thirteen days later, and hours after plaintiffs filed summary judgment papers identifying the six agents by name in public filings — to move for reconsideration. "That timing undercuts the Government's assertion that the press release created an immediate, concrete, and substantial risk warranting renewed sealing," Cote wrote.
The April 1 opinion had applied both common law and First Amendment principles to conclude that the public's presumption of access to the agents' identities was strong, that the public interest in disclosure was substantial, and that the agents' privacy interests and harassment risks did not overcome that presumption.
The case dates to early 2025, when the American Federation of Government Employees and other plaintiffs sued OPM over its decision, following President Trump's inauguration, to give DOGE agents broad access to federal personnel records. On June 9, 2025, Cote determined that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that the access grants violated OPM's cybersecurity practices as well as the law, and she issued a preliminary injunction on June 20.
Summary judgment briefing is ongoing, with plaintiffs having filed their cross-motion on April 15 — the same day the government moved to reseal.