• Donald Trump continues to call Elon Musk DOGE's leader.
• Trump's latest comments came during his joint address to Congress.
• The White House and the Justice Department have said Musk is not leading DOGE.

During his record-setting joint address to Congress, President Donald Trump continued calling Elon Musk the leader of the White House DOGE office.

"I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, perhaps you've heard of it, which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight," Trump said in his speech Tuesday night.

Trump's habit of saying Musk is in charge of the group has already created legal headaches for his administration, which has repeatedly said the Tesla CEO is not actually leading DOGE.

A group of plaintiffs challenging DOGE's constitutionality immediately alerted a Washington, DC, federal judge to Trump's comments almost as soon as the president finished his speech.

"At approximately 9:46 PM, President Trump stated the following in his Joint Address to Congress," the plaintiffs wrote in their filing.

The plaintiffs, who include two attorneys, quickly filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on the day Trump was sworn into office, arguing that the creation of DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. The lawsuit declares DOGE a federal advisory committee that should be subject to the FACA law.

The law, which was designed to boost public accountability, covers advisory committees that are either formed or utilized by the president.

An amended lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs says "Musk continues to speak for DOGE and take credit for DOGE's activities, while not being" the administrator for the US DOGE Service.

DOGE was birthed out of a rebrand of the United States Digital Service — a technology unit housed in the executive office of the president.

"DOGE continues to take actions which are completely unrelated to the USDS mandate set forth" in Trump's day one executive order that formally established DOGE, the amended complaint says.

US District Judge Jia Cobb has since consolidated the case with two other similar cases.

Trump's joint address comments were cited in another court filing in a Maryland case brought against Musk and DOGE by 26 current and former USAID employees or contractors.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs on Wednesday filed a letter to the federal judge overseeing the case asking the court "to take judicial notice of these relevant admissions."

"Plaintiffs respectfully write to bring to the Court's attention additional relevant admissions made last night. Defendants consent to providing these facts to the Court," the letter read. "During his joint address to Congress, President Donald Trump twice identified Defendant Musk as DOGE's leader."

The plaintiffs' lawsuit alleges that Musk's actions in the Trump administration are "unconstitutional."

And a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Washington, DC, federal court against Musk and the Trump administration also cites Trump's joint address speech.

"Mr. Musk is acting as a principal officer of the United States. However, Mr. Musk has not been appointed to a position as an officer of the United States, in accordance with the Appointments Clause," says the lawsuit, which was brought by a group of nonprofits, including the Japanese American Citizens League.

Meanwhile, a top White House official previously said in federal court that Musk was neither the DOGE office administrator nor even an employee of the group. The White House has also repeatedly stressed that Musk is just a senior advisor to the president. After weeks of refusing to name DOGE's administrator publicly, the White House said that Amy Gleason, a US Digital Service employee, was the acting administrator of the DOGE office.

Multiple signs suggest that Musk remains DOGE's de facto leader, dating back to Trump's initial creation of "The Department of Government Efficiency," when he named the billionaire as its co-leader.

Just days ago, a Department of Justice lawyer struggled to answer questions from a district court judge about DOGE's structure. Anna Bower, a Lawfare editor, posted part of the exchange on X.

"Who was the head of DOGE before Amy Gleason?" Judge Theodore Chuang asked the DOJ attorney, Joshua Gardner.

"I can't answer that. I don't know," Gardner responded.

Trump is no stranger to making public statements that create headaches for the Justice Department.

During his first term, Trump's tweets were repeatedly used as evidence in various lawsuits brought against his administration.

At one point, the DOJ said that Trump's tweets were not presidential actions.

The White House didn't immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Federal courts have already trimmed Donald Trump and Elon Musk's sails.
• But judges have surprisingly little recourse if Trump and Musk defy their rulings.
• If anyone is punished for such defiance, it likely won't be the president.

Federal judges keep ruling against President Trump, but they have no real power to enforce their decisions.

"The president has much more force at his disposal than do the courts," Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf told Business Insider.

For instance, despite a federal court order Monday barring the administration's spending freeze, numerous Environmental Protection Agency programs remain inaccessible to their intended recipients. US District Judge John McConnell said state agencies have a "rightful concern" that they still couldn't access some programs.

Constitutional law experts warn that if a president chose to defy court orders, judges would have limited options. The consequences would likely fall on lower-level officials, not the president himself, said Michael J. Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill.

"At the very least, you would have a possible contempt citation directed at a particular official who has refused to comply with a court order," Gerhardt told BI, "If they indicate they are defying it because of his order, then the court is going to include the president in the citation of contempt."

But enforcing even that would fall to the Justice Department — which answers to Trump.

Gerhardt pointed to recent examples of Trump testing limits: The president fired inspectors general without providing Congress the legally required notification and list of reasons for dismissal.

Some in Trump's orbit have previously said the president should actively confront the judiciary. Long before he was elected last November, Vice President JD Vance argued that Trump should forge ahead with bold actions and dare federal judges who try to stand in his way.

"I think that what Trump should, like, if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state," Vance said in 2021 on a podcast. "Replace them with our people. And when the courts — because you will get taken to court — and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'" (Many historians believe Andrew Jackson likely never said that.)

Presidents have expressed their displeasure with court rulings, but fundamentally ignoring a federal judge is another matter.

Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School, said that judges are likely to look unfavorably on any deliberate actions to defy their rulings.

"To the extent the administration's actions are viewed as improvisational, erratic, or deliberately pushing previously settled boundaries in a haphazard way, that would make any normal judge — regardless of personal politics — skeptical," Paradis told BI.

Behind the apparent disorder, Gerhardt sees a deliberate strategy.

"Part of Trump's strategy is to manifest that defiance in many ways, so it becomes very difficult to keep track of all of them," he said, "We're not just talking about one thing, it's many things. And I think one reason why there are many things is because it overwhelms the system."