Judge Orders Removal of DOGE Deposition Videos

A federal judge in Manhattan ordered the removal of video depositions from two former employees of the Department of Government Efficiency on Friday, after clips from the footage spread widely online and prompted reports of harassment against one witness. The decision came amid ongoing lawsuits challenging the agency's role in canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The videos, totaling nearly 25 hours, captured testimony from Justin Fox and Nathan Cavanaugh, both of whom previously worked in technology and finance roles at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The agency, established under President Trump's administration, reviewed and terminated numerous grants last spring as part of efforts to eliminate programs deemed wasteful or noncompliant with an executive order targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Fox and Cavanaugh testified that they lacked formal backgrounds in the humanities but participated in screening processes aligned with DOGE's mission to reduce federal spending.

In their January depositions, the witnesses described using ChatGPT, a large language model, to analyze over a...