What 1,000 pages of documents tell us about DOGE
beSpacific 2025-12-17
The Verge [no paywall]: “As Brendan Carr heads to Capitol Hill, newly released documents still don’t say much about what DOGE did at the FCC. Months after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency were found in the Federal Communications Commission directory, the FCC is being accused of slow-walking demands for information about what they did there. On February 24th, advocacy group Frequency Forward and journalist Nina Burleigh filed a public records request to the FCC, seeking details about DOGE’s activities and whether they created conflicts of interest with DOGE creator Elon Musk. But the FCC has so far produced largely useless documentation that creates more questions than answers. Now, DOGE’s role is among the many topics FCC Chair Brendan Carr could face during a highly anticipated oversight hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday. Frequency Forward and Burleigh asked in their But the agency has produced little that casts light on DOGE’s operations. It has released 1,079 pages of documents, nearly all of them within the past few weeks, comprised mainly of spreadsheets, an ethics manual, and an already public FCC order. The FCC says it is still processing 900 pages that include records it needs to consult with other agencies about before releasing. The FCC did not respond to a request for comment on the FOIA battle or the DOGE staffers…While delays may have been exacerbated by the 43-day government shutdown, Frequency Forward and Burleigh have accused the FCC of “acting in bad faith” and “intentionally seeking to delay” court proceedings. The FCC has denied that’s the case in court filings. The group
The documents that have been produced so far are interesting not so much in what they show, but in what they don’t show,” says Arthur Belendiuk, an attorney carrying out the FOIA case against the FCC and a former employee at the agency. They include relatively limited information about what DOGE staffers were working on, what systems they had access to, and which of them were even fully onboarded…”
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