- Department of Government Efficiency legal counsel William McGinley is reportedly leaving the commission to seek a job in the private sector. Meanwhile, DOGE is facing multiple lawsuits alleging it violates a 1972 transparency law.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is losing its top lawyer just as the special commission faces mounting litigation over alleged transparency violations.
Legal counsel William McGinley is reportedly leaving DOGE to pursue a job outside the government. President Donald Trump asked McGinley, who served as cabinet secretary in Trump’s first presidential term, to fill the role in early December.
“I am in discussions regarding a number of private sector opportunities and will have something to announce in the next couple of weeks,” McGinley told the Wall Street Journal Thursday. “I support President Trump, Vice President Vance, and the great teams in the White House and across the administration 100%.”
McGinley joins DOGE’s original co-head Vivek Ramaswamy as a high-profile staffer who departed DOGE only days after Trump began his second term. Ramaswamy left the commission Monday as he considers a run for Ohio governor, leaving Musk as DOGE’s sole head.
A longtime Republican election lawyer, McGinley served as the liaison between the White House and federal heads in Trump’s first administration, and was the Republican National Convention’s counsel for election integrity during the 2024 presidential race. Trump initially considered McGinley for the role as White House general counsel, but ultimately decided to place him in DOGE. Since 2019, he’s been part of boutique law firm Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky and Josefiak.
McGinley and the White House did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
DOGE’s legal troubles
In McGinley’s absence, DOGE will need leadership to steer it through its mounting legal struggles. Within minutes of Trump’s inauguration, the commission was hit with multiple lawsuits alleging it violates federal transparency rules.
National Security Counselors, a public-interest law firm, named DOGE—as well as Ramaswamy, Trump, Musk, and the Office of Management and Budget, among others—as defendants in a complaint claiming DOGE violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) outlining how federal advisories operate in relation to the public. Left-leaning advocacy group Democracy Forward, as well as Public Citizen, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the American Federation of Government Employees, filed two suits.
Enacted in 1972, FACA ensures the public has access to notes and reports from meetings between federal groups and agencies they manage or control. The litigation against DOGE alleges the commission completed much of its early business through encrypted messaging app Signal. In November, Musk said on X, “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.”
DOGE was initially conceived as a special commission focused on increasing government efficiency and shaving $2 trillion from the federal budget. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order saying DOGE will replace the U.S. Digital Service created in 2014 under President Barack Obama to provide guidance to federal agencies on information technology. DOGE will operate as part of the executive branch.
“Nobody disputes that there is a huge amount of wasteful spending in the federal government,” National Security Counselors executive director Kel McClanahan told multiple outlets in a statement. “Our only concern is that DOGE, as it is currently constituted, lacks the expertise to understand how its recommendations will backfire if it pushes federal workers out without understanding why they are there in the first place.”
National Security Counselors did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
