The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans.

The emergency appeal is the first in a string of applications to the high court involving DOGE’s swift-moving work across the federal government.

It comes after an order from a judge in Maryland restricted the team’s access to Social Security under federal privacy laws.

Social Security holds personal records on nearly everyone in the country, including school records, bank details, salary information and medical and mental health records for disability recipients, according to court documents.

The government says the DOGE team needs access to target waste in the federal government. Musk, now preparing to step back from his work with DOGE, has been focused on Social Security as an alleged hotbed of fraud. The billionaire entrepreneur has described it as a “ Ponzi scheme ” and insisted that reducing waste in the program is an important way to cut government spending.

Solicitor General John Sauer argued Friday that the judge’s restrictions disrupt DOGE’s important work and inappropriately interfere with executive-branch decisions. “Left undisturbed, this preliminary injunction will only invite further judicial incursions into internal agency decision-making,” he wrote.

He asked the justices to block the order from U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland as the lawsuit plays out.

Judge blocks Trump’s order against law firm

A federal judge on Friday blocked a White House executive order targeting an elite law firm, dealing a setback to President Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against the legal profession.

U.S. District Beryl Howell said the executive order against the law firm of Perkins Coie violated multiple provisions of the Constitution and ordered that it be immediately nullified.

The order sought to punish the firm by stripping the security clearances of its lawyers, blocking its employees from accessing federal buildings and canceling federal contracts involving the firm.

It was one in a series of similar executive actions aimed at punishing some of the country’s most prestigious law firms, in some cases over prior legal representations out of favor with the Trump administration or because of their associations with prosecutors who previously investigated Trump. In the case of Perkins Coie, the White House cited its representation of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 presidential race.

Howell wrote in her 102-page order, “No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”

Harvard hints at fight over Trump tax threat

Harvard University signaled Friday that it would resist President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, a move for which it said there was “no legal basis” as the president escalated his bitter dispute with the nation’s oldest university.

Harvard stopped short of explicitly pledging a legal challenge to a revocation of its tax status, a change that would upend the university’s finances. But a spokesperson for the university said in a statement that there was “no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status.”

“Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission,” the statement said. “It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”

Trump declared Friday morning on social media that the government would be “taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status.” Trump added, “It’s what they deserve.”

Despite Trump’s assertion online and Harvard’s sharp response, it was not immediately clear Friday whether the IRS was in fact moving forward with revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a change that could typically occur only after a lengthy process. Federal law prohibits the president from directing the IRS to conduct tax investigations.

Army confirms military parade for Trump

The Army on Friday confirmed there will be a military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June, as part of the celebrations around the service’s 250th birthday.

Plans for the parade, as first detailed by the Associated Press on Thursday, call for about 6,600 soldiers to march from Arlington, Virginia, to the National Mall along with 150 vehicles and 50 helicopters. Until recently, the Army’s birthday festival plans did not include a massive parade, which officials say will cost tens of millions of dollars.

But Trump has long wanted a military parade, and discussions with the Pentagon about having one in conjunction with the birthday festival began less than two months ago.

The pricey parade comes as Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk, have slashed federal government departments, personnel and programs, with thousands of workers losing their jobs, including civilians in the Defense Department.

The Army 250th birthday happens to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday on June 14. When asked about the parade on Thursday, the White House did not respond, and Army officials said no decision had been made. Officials on Friday afternoon said there has now been a formal decision to proceed with the parade but that there is still no specific cost estimate.

Trump to rename Veterans, V-E days

President Donald Trump’s announcement that he planned to change the name of Veterans Day, on Nov. 11, to “Victory Day for World War I” prompted a backlash from some veterans’ groups, which complained that the move would champion conquest over sacrifice and ignore the sacrifices of most living veterans.

In a social media post late Thursday, Trump also said he would declare May 8, the date that Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945, “Victory Day for World War II” instead of Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, as it is commonly known in the United States.

But some veterans’ advocacy groups said the focus of the new names on winning overlooked veterans who served in more recent wars that had more mixed results.

“It is not the veterans’ fault if we don’t win wars,” said Allison Jaslow, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who also served in Iraq. She added that “Veterans Day should be an acknowledgment of the ways that fellow Americans have served and sacrificed to protect and defend what we have in America.

In 2023, the census counted 15.8 million veterans living in America. This year, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that about 66,000 American World War II veterans were alive. There are no surviving veterans of World War I.

That means that with Trump’s proposed name changes, more than 99% of living veterans — a group that includes Vice President JD Vance, who served with the Marines in Iraq — would be left without a holiday commemorating their service.

Government settles Ashli Babbitt lawsuit

The Trump administration has reached a preliminary agreement to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt over her shooting by an officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, attorneys said on Friday.

Lawyers for Babbitt’s estate and the Justice Department told a judge in Washington’s federal court that they have reached a settlement in principle, but the details are still being worked out and the final agreement has not yet been signed. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.

Babbitt’s estate filed the $30 million lawsuit last year over her fatal shooting when she attempted to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Capitol Police officer who shot her was cleared of wrongdoing, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which concluded that he acted in self-defense and in the defense of members of Congress. The Capitol Police also cleared the officer.

Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was unarmed when she was shot by the police lieutenant when she tried to climb through the door as others in the mob pressed to get into the lobby outside the House chamber.

Trump relents on Maine nutrition funds

President Donald Trump’s adThe Trump administration and Maine reached an agreement that restored funding for schoolchildren, Maine’s attorney general said Friday, part of a feud between the president and the state’s governor over policies on transgender athletes.

The state’s attorney general, Aaron M. Frey, said his office had withdrawn a lawsuit it filed in objection to the funding freeze, which had held up about $3 million, he estimated, and was initiated by the Agriculture Department last month. The federal dollars, Frey said in an interview, pay for food preparation in schools and child care centers, and also assist in feeding disabled adults in congregate settings.

The Agriculture Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, had said the freeze would not deprive children of food.

The conflict between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, escalated at an event at the White House in February. Trump told Mills that she had “better comply” with his executive order barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. Mills, whose state has refused to follow the order, replied, “See you in court.”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins cited the state’s unwillingness to comply with the executive order when the federal funds were frozen.

Five days later, Frey, the attorney general, filed his lawsuit, saying that the pause was affecting children and at-risk adults.

— News service reports