Oops!
Sorry Donald,
Checkmate!
A judge says he will freeze elements of Trump’s plan to shut down U.S.A.I.D.
Food from the United States Agency for International Development being delivered to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, in 2021.Credit...J. Countess/Getty Images
A federal judge on Friday said he would order the Trump administration to halt for now some elements of its attempt to shut down the United States Agency for International Development.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 2019 Trump appointee, said he would issue a temporary restraining order pausing the imminent administrative leave of 2,200 U.S.A.I.D. employees and a plan to withdraw nearly all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days.
He was ruling on a lawsuit filed by the largest union representing federal workers and the union that represents foreign service officers. Judge Nichols said the unions had “established irreparable harm” to the employees affected by the leave and withdrawal orders.
Saying that the ordered pause would be a brief one, Judge Nichols said he intended to hear “expedited arguments” in the case but did not immediately schedule another hearing. He added that he was still considering whether to reverse an action that had placed 500 agency employees on administrative leave.
His order was the latest action by a court to slow or limit President Trump’s agenda, following rulings that blocked for now Mr. Trump’s moves to freeze federal spending and overturn birthright citizenship. The cases are part of a sprawling legal battle over Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand presidential authority in ways that Democrats call unconstitutional.
Democrats also fear that Mr. Trump’s moves to gut U.S.A.I.D. may serve as a test case for dramatically cutting or shutting down other federal departments and agencies.
The unions had asked the court to block Mr. Trump’s dismantlement of the aid agency, calling it “unconstitutional and illegal” and saying it had “generated a global humanitarian crisis” and threatened American strategic interests.
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle U.S.A.I.D. were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the lawsuit said. “And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”
The lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, notes the central role Elon Musk played in the agency’s gutting. Mr. Musk, a Trump ally and donor, recently boasted online of “feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper.”
In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees said it was “pleased” by the ruling, adding: “We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights.”
One current and one former U.S.A.I.D. official expressed elation when informed of the ruling, even if it means the agency’s workers still face confusion and uncertainty about their fate.
The agency’s defenders say that Trump officials have cherry-picked a small number of expenses and wildly distorted their significance. They say the swift shutdown will have a direct cost in lives, and play into the hands of American strategic competitors like Russia and China.
The plaintiff’s lead lawyer on Friday was Karla Gilbride, who was fired last month as the general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ms. Gilbride, who is blind, was led to her seat by a fellow plaintiff’s lawyer.
The Justice Department did not file a brief in the case, and during Friday’s hearing, which lasted around 90 minutes, Judge Nichols noted repeatedly that the Trump administration had not provided much information from which he could draw.
Justice Department lawyers argued during the hearing that, even though the government was trying to put thousands of workers on administrative leave, the case was ultimately a collection of individual personnel actions over which Congress has no authority.
“To be sure, it’s a large number of individuals,” Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, said during arguments on Friday. “But it is still a personnel action.”
Mr. Trump mounted an assault on U.S. foreign aid almost immediately after taking office last month, and his administration has placed virtually of the agency’s employees on administrative leave. On his Truth Social account Friday, he wrote that U.S.A.I.D. should be closed down.
Before Mr. Trump targeted the agency, which is independent from but guided by the State Department, U.S.A.I.D. employed about 10,000 workers and contractors. By Friday, that number was set to be reduced to only a few hundred people still viewed as essential by the agency’s new leaders in the State Department.
Asked by Judge Nichols why the Trump administration was moving so fast against U.S.A.I.D. workers, a Justice Department lawyer said the administration was trying to root out “corruption and fraud.” Judge Nichols said the Trump administration had not cited those factors in its order to place workers on leave.
nytimes.com |
