President Donald Trump greets Ireland's Prime Minister Michel Martin as he arrives at the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-03-20T04:01:12Z WASHINGTON (AP) Donald Trumps shoot-from-the-lip style kept Americans on the edge of their seats during last years campaign. But now that hes speaking as a president and not as a candidate, his words are being used against him in court in the blizzard of litigation challenging his agenda.The spontaneity is complicating his administrations legal positions. Nowhere has this been clearer than in cases involving Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the driving force in Trumps efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government.The latest example came earlier this week, when U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that Musk had likely violated the Constitution by dismantling the United States Agency for International Development. The lawsuit turned on the question of whether the billionaire entrepreneur had overstepped his authority. Justice Department lawyers and White House officials insist that Musk is merely a presidential adviser, not the actual leader of DOGE. But Trump has said otherwise in speeches, interviews and public remarks and Chuang quoted him extensively in his decision. Trump most notably boasted of creating DOGE during his primetime address to a joint session of Congress and said it was headed by Elon Musk. Republicans gave Musk a standing ovation, who saluted from the gallery above the House chamber.Trumps words were essential, central and indispensable, said Norm Eisen, one of the lawyers for USAID employees who filed the lawsuit. His admissions took what would have been a tough case and made it into a straightforward one. The looseness with words is a shift from predecessors like President Barack Obama, who used to say that he was careful because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling. Trump has no such feeling of restraint, and neither do other members of his administration like Musk. Chuang, who is based in Maryland and was appointed by Obama, also cited social media posts from Musk, who writes frequently on X, the platform that he owns. For example, Musk posted we spent the weekend feeding USAID to the woodchipper on Feb. 3. The agency was being brought to a standstill at that time, with staff furloughed, spending halted and headquarters shut down.Musks public statements and posts ... suggest that he has the ability to cause DOGE to act, Chuang wrote in his ruling. Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary at the White House, said Trump was fulfilling his campaign promise to make the federal government more efficient and accountable to taxpayers.Rogue bureaucrats and activist judges attempting to undermine this effort are only subverting the will of the American people and their obstructionist efforts will fail, he said. Anthony Coley, who led public affairs at the Justice Department during President Joe Bidens administration, said statements involving civil litigation were always coordinated between his office and the West Wing. The words could be used to support what were doing or undermine what were doing, he said. Its a carefully choreographed effort to make sure there was no daylight between what was said in the court of public opinion and what could ultimately play out in the court of law. In comparison to how things were done in the past, Coley said, Trump has a ready-fire-aim approach of doing business. Trump doesnt usually let legal disputes force him to turn down the volume. During a criminal investigation over his decision to keep classified records at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House following his first term, Trump spoke extensively about the case in an interview with Fox News. Longtime defense lawyers were startled defendants are usually encouraged to keep mum while facing an indictment. But the situation panned out for Trump. His legal team delayed the case, and the special counsels office dropped the charges after he won the election because presidents cant be prosecuted while in office. DOGE has been the focus of nearly two dozen lawsuits. Its often prevailed so far in cases involving access to government data, where several plaintiffs have struggled to convince judges to block the organizations actions. But its also run into challenges, such as a lawsuit over whether DOGE must comply with public records requests. The Trump administration asserted in court that DOGE is part of the White House, meaning its exempt. Judge Christopher Cooper, also appointed by Obama, disagreed, siding with a government watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.Musk and the Presidents public statements indicate that USDS the original acronym for the organization that was renamed as DOGE is in fact exercising substantial independent authority, wrote Cooper, who is based in Washington. Cooper concluded that DOGE can identify and terminate federal employees, federal programs, and federal contracts. Doing any of those three things would appear to require substantial independent authority; to do all three surely does.He ordered DOGE to start responding to requests about the teams role in mass firings and disruptions to federal programs. The administration unsuccessfully asked the judge to reconsider, saying the judge fundamentally misapprehended the agencys structure. Just because Musk claims credit online for deep agency cuts, doesnt necessarily translate to DOGE having authority in the eyes of the law, Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell argued in a recent debate on the issue.DOGE is recommending changes, he said, but its the agency heads who are actually putting them into effect. And thats all that the courts are going to care about as to what the Supreme Court is going to do, McConnell said at the debate hosted by the National Constitution Center. CHRIS MEGERIAN Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey. twitter mailto LINDSAY WHITEHURST Whitehurst covers the Supreme Court, legal affairs and criminal justice for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. Past stops include Salt Lake City, New Mexico and Indiana. twitter mailto