A left-wing policy think tank in Washington, D.C., is supporting a legal battle against the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, operating on millions of dollars donated by the foundation owned by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.
The small nonprofit group, Governing for Impact, or GFI, appears to have been instrumental in shaping legal strategies aimed at disrupting DOGE’s operations. GFI was established with $17 million in funding from Soros’s group Open Society Foundations, funneled through dark money organizations such as the New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to donations from 2019 to 2021 listed on Open Society’s webpage.
“Governing for Impact only has one known donor in the world. There are no other known donors besides Soros, so it’s just him,” said Parker Thayer, an investigator for the Capital Research Center who first surfaced the Soros-linked effort in a thread on X.
Following President Donald Trump‘s victory in November, GFI began publishing memos on stopping Schedule F layoffs and “challenging unlawful impoundments,” both of which have been subject to separate lawsuits since Trump’s Day One executive orders. GFI’s latest strategy includes laying out a series of legal theories arguing that DOGE lacks lawful authority to function as a federal agency. And organizations that have sued the Trump administration over DOGE’s power appear to have taken GFI’s advice.
One memo posted to GFI’s web page titled “Challenging DOGE,” for example, lays out a legal road map asserting that DOGE “lacks lawful authority to act as an agency” and therefore “cannot enter Economy Act agreements,” citing the 1932 law that allows federal agencies to share resources.
Within a month, the same legal argument was used in a lawsuit supported by left-leaning legal advocacy groups against DOGE, including in a lawsuit known as the AFL-CIO v. Department of Labor.
In a Feb. 7 filing supporting a temporary restraining order against DOGE, lawyers for AFL-CIO argued that under certain circumstances, the head of an agency can place orders with other federal agencies under the Economy Act.
“DOGE is purely a creature of executive order, however, and therefore cannot be an agency,” the lawyers said.
Notably, AFL-CIO and other associated plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the Democracy Forward Foundation. The DFF board is chaired by Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias, and the current executive director of GFI, Rachael Klarman, worked as a legal policy analyst for DFF from 2017 to 2019, according to information gathered from LinkedIn.
Another major player backed by Soros in the fight against DOGE is the State Democracy Defenders Action, or SDDA, a group founded by liberal attorney Norm Eisen. SDDA has received over $1.5 million in funding from the Open Society Policy Center and Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to InfluenceWatch.
SDDA filed a lawsuit against Musk and DOGE earlier this month, claiming Musk’s activity violates the appointments clause.
Despite the whirlwind of litigation against DOGE, the challenges have not stopped its momentum. On Feb. 15, U.S. District Judge John Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, issued a ruling in the American Federation of Labor lawsuit that marked a win for the government waste-cutting program. Bates ruled that DOGE could continue accessing sensitive records from multiple federal agencies.
Nonetheless, GFI recently hired additional attorneys to expand its legal campaign against DOGE, including former Office of Management and Budget official Adam Grogg.
In other short-term victories for DOGE, a judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday declined to grant a restraining order against it, handing the Trump administration a small win as it works through the lawsuits related to the newly established spending advisory body. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former President Barack Obama appointee, said the 14 states that requested the temporary restraining order against DOGE and White House senior adviser Elon Musk did not prove they would “suffer imminent, irreparable harm” without it.
While DOGE has managed to secure some legal victories, it has also suffered some setbacks.
On Feb. 14, U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, extended her restraining order barring DOGE from accessing Treasury Department systems, citing cybersecurity and constitutional concerns.
During the Biden administration, GFI played a major role in drafting regulations for the former president, with over 20 federal rules reportedly influenced by the group’s policy memos.
Tom Perriello, a Democratic former U.S. representative, played a key role in the establishment of GFI in 2019. Perriello previously served on GFI’s four-person board and served as the executive director of Open Society-U.S from 2018 to 2023.
Leadership of GFI eventually transitioned to Klarman in 2019. Underscoring the close connections within this network, her father Michael Klarman and her uncle, billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman, collectively contributed over $20,000 to Perriello’s congressional campaigns between 2008 and 2010, according to Open Secrets.
In response to the mounting legal challenges to DOGE, the Trump administration, through the Justice Department, clarified in court filings this week Musk is not the administrator of DOGE but serves as a senior adviser to Trump. While the clarification creates a new question as to who the administrator of DOGE actually is, the distinction could be key in future court battles, as the lawsuit Chutkan is presiding over in Washington seeks to block Musk specifically from having broad access to government data and decision-making power.
Despite the legal onslaught, Musk and his allies continue to push DOGE’s mission forward, emphasizing its role in cutting government waste and increasing efficiency.
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Since Trump assumed office on Jan. 20, DOGE has implemented significant cost-cutting measures across federal agencies. As of Tuesday, DOGE reports approximately $37.69 billion in savings, targeting a total of $1 trillion by July 4, 2026.
The Washington Examiner reached out to GFI and Open Society for comment.
