Linkedin A federal FOIA fight is escalating over DOGE’s activities inside the FCC, as plaintiffs seek discovery into ethics clearances, data access, and withheld communications involving Elon Musk–linked entities, datasets, and Chairman Brendan Carr’s contract-cutting initiative. Plaintiffs Nina Burleigh and Frequency Forward filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC in February 2025, seeking records of DOGE’s activities inside the Commission and communications between agency leadership and Elon Musk, SpaceX, and Starlink. After a year of incomplete production, they filed suit in US District Court for the District of Columbia and are now seeking court-ordered discovery. Three DOGE representatives, Tarak Makecha, Jordan Wick, and Jacob Altik, are publicly listed in the FCC staff directory under the Office of the Chairman but court filings reveal uneven onboarding. Wick was fully processed, while Altik, according to internal emails, apparently never completed onboarding. Makecha’s case sits at the center of the lawsuit. Makecha arrived at the FCC on or around March 17, 2025, detailed from the Office of Personnel Management. On the day he arrived, he signed a financial disclosure form acknowledging he held stock in Musk’s Tesla, along with shares in Walt Disney Co. and a telecommunications-sector mutual fund. The FCC’s ethics office did not sign off on his access until nine days later. In between, Makecha was already requesting FCC personnel data and broadband mapping information and made his priorities plain in a March 17 email to FCC General Counsel Adam Candeub: “At the end of the day, all I need is a badge/laptop so I can get FCC data and support FCC leadership in execution.” A second DOGE staffer, David LaCerte, asked in the same email chain whether ethics clearance was even required before starting work, suggesting the process be modernized. Candeub’s response was to take the conversation offline. The FCC has produced no documentation showing that either staffer completed the required ethics clearances before receiving access to agency systems. Makecha’s work at the FCC focused on contract review, workforce data, and broadband mapping; three of the most operationally sensitive datasets the agency holds. That contract review became a centerpiece of Chairman Brendan Carr’s public agenda. In May, Carr announced the FCC had reduced more than $567 million in authorized contract spending, including the elimination of redundant IT services, lightly used periodicals, IT licenses exceeding active user counts, and what the agency described as an unnecessary contract for “feral swine and hog trapping.” Near-term savings from canceled or modified contracts totaled more than $6.7 million for the remainder of 2025, with an additional $21.1 million projected for 2026; a 20 percent reduction in planned contract spending. Carr credited the effort to an internal DOGE team composed of FCC staff working in coordination with external DOGE representatives, consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order 14222. What the public did not see was what the court record now shows: that the external DOGE representatives coordinating that review were operating inside the FCC before their ethics clearances were finalized, that at least one held financial interests in a Musk-controlled company, and that the records documenting their access and activities are among those the FCC is now fighting to withhold. Candeub ended Makecha’s gratis service as a Special Government Employee on April 1, less than two weeks after ethics approval had been granted. Internal emails show Makecha was still trying to complete contract review work through other channels at the time his FCC relationship ended. The contrast with how DOGE was handled at another broadcast-adjacent federal agency is notable. When a DOGE representative contacted the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in April requesting to assign a review team, CPB Executive Vice President and General Counsel Evan Slavitt rejected the request by citing a federal statute that explicitly places CPB outside executive branch authority. The FCC made no such determination. It issued DOGE representatives official email addresses, listed them in its public staff directory, and gave them access to personnel and broadband data. The FCC’s document production in the FOIA case, plaintiffs argue, reflects an agency working to contain what that access revealed. The Commission produced no text messages despite a March 2025 email from Candeub to Makecha that explicitly references a prior text exchange that appears nowhere in the FCC’s Vaughn index. The agency produced virtually no Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, or Slack communications, all of which the FOIA request explicitly covered. A single email from Carr was produced, and it was completely redacted. Musk’s name appears nowhere in the documents the FCC has released. SpaceX and Starlink appear only in published FCC orders attached to emails. The FCC’s Vaughn index covers hundreds of pages of withheld or redacted material but offers what plaintiffs describe as a conclusory justification for its withholdings. Among the records withheld in full: a draft agency RIF and reorganization plan, internal workforce data, a chart listing every FCC employee along with salary, grade, and duty station, contract review communications between FCC staff and DOGE team members, and internal deliberations on a deregulatory initiative whose name the agency has redacted throughout, listing it only as part of Chairman Carr’s ongoing “Delete, Delete, Delete” deregulation action. Plaintiffs are asking the court to authorize depositions of FCC witnesses, along with interrogatories, requests for admission, and additional document production. The FCC opposes the motion. The case is assigned to US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Share via: