A federal judge has temporarily prevented the Trump administration from placing thousands of employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave, blocking the administration’s plan to reduce the agency’s workforce to just a few hundred.
The temporary restraining order, issued by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., halts any mass staffing changes at USAID until at least February 15.
Judge Nichols directed the Trump administration to reinstate all USAID employees who had been placed on administrative leave, prohibited further employees from being put on leave, and ordered that no overseas USAID staff be asked to return to the U.S. on an “expedited timeline.”
Earlier this week, the Trump administration had ordered the recall of nearly all USAID employees stationed abroad, giving them 30 days to return home at the government’s expense, unless they were granted an approved exception.
Nichols also ruled that all USAID employees “shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems.”
The judge’s decision was first reported by Politico. Nichols, a Trump appointee, issued the full restraining order late Friday night.
He scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for February 12.
Reports indicated that White House officials had planned to reduce the agency’s workforce of over 10,000 employees down to just 600, focusing solely on critical humanitarian and public health efforts.
Nichols noted after Friday’s hearing that approximately 500 USAID employees had already been placed on leave and were now likely to be called back to work.
Federal unions filed a lawsuit on Thursday against President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other administration officials, challenging efforts to dismantle and reorganize the agency.
Attorneys representing the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argued that the layoffs could endanger workers stationed overseas and impact non-governmental organizations that depend on USAID funding.
The lawsuit specifically targeted the actions of Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), now a White House-appointed “special government employee,” who allegedly boasted about “feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”
Reports suggest that Musk entered USAID’s headquarters over the weekend, improperly accessed classified materials with DOGE engineers, and clashed with security officials, who were subsequently dismissed.
Brett Shumate, a Justice Department attorney representing the administration, argued that the president had the authority to place employees on leave after identifying “corruption and fraud” within the agency’s programs.
“This is about how employees are harmed in their capacity as employees — in the employee/employer relationship — and it seems to me that, for reasons I will discuss in this order… the plaintiffs have established at least that there is irreparable harm as it relates to that relationship,” Nichols said at the end of the hearing, according to ABC News.
In his first week in office, President Trump ordered a government-wide funding freeze to review billions of dollars in grants, loans, and other financial aid, resulting in thousands of USAID contractors being furloughed.
President John F. Kennedy created USAID by executive order in 1961, a move that Trump supporters have cited as justification for the president to revoke its funding and shut down the agency without a vote from Congress.
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the unions’ attorneys wrote in their complaint filed in D.C. federal court.
On Friday morning, President Trump posted on his Truth Social account about the agency: “The CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!”
“USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY, AND THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT BECAUSE THE WAY IN WHICH THE MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT, SO MUCH OF IT FRAUDULENTLY, IS TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE,” Trump added.
Critics responded by pointing out that Congress has approved USAID spending for decades, and it has the final say on whether the agency can be closed or reorganized under the State Department’s control.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who assumed the role of acting administrator on Monday, told reporters, “The level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct a sort of mature and serious review that I think foreign aid writ large should have.”
“This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se,” Rubio added during an official trip to El Salvador. “There are things that it does that are good, and there are things that it does that we have strong questions about.”
{Matzav.com}