The six justices comprising the far-right majority on the Supreme Court just radically endorsed a sweeping intrusion into the privacy of hundreds of millions of Americans by the Department of Government Efficiency or “DOGE,” without so much as the pretense of a justification.

One must seriously wonder what their endgame really is, because it’s not about upholding the law.

With the exception of a reference to the Treasury Department, the Constitution says nothing about federal agencies. Congress creates them pursuant to its Article I powers to legislate.

But Congress did not pass any legislation creating the Department of Government Efficiency. It was declared into existence by President Trump via executive order when he took office in January.

What’s more, for the real federal agencies that Congress actually creates, Article II of the Constitution mandates that their officers — the agency heads or “secretaries” — must be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. The outgoing “head” of DOGE, Elon Musk, was neither.

Congressionally created agency heads are also confined to the job descriptions established under a governing statute for each particular agency. For DOGE, Trump directed the actual federal agencies to create “DOGE Teams” to “coordinate their work” with Musk and to “advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President’s DOGE Agenda.” This kind of uber-power over agencies is constitutionally unprecedented.

The point of mandating Senate confirmation of agency heads is of course to enable elected representatives of the people to gather information about a candidate’s qualifications and possible disqualifying characteristics, such as conflicts of interest that would make it difficult or impossible for an officer to neutrally exercise the duties of their office. According to an April report........

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