The Supreme Court Tuesday stayed a district judge’s injunction blocking President Donald Trump from carrying out a “critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy.”
Trump signed Executive Order 14210 on Feb. 11, implementing the Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative. On Feb. 26, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell sent a memorandum applying the order.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal government employee union, and other unions filed suit to block the order, and U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order on May 22.
The Supreme Court explained that Judge Illston blocked the actions “based on [her] view” that the order and the memo “are unlawful.” Yet the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s administration “is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful.”
The Supreme Court expressed no opinion on the legality of any agency reduction in force and reorganization plan produced pursuant to the order and the memo.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an appointee of President Barack Obama, wrote a brief concurrence with the order.
“I agree with [Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson] that the president cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates,” Sotomayor wrote. “Here, however, the relevant executive order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force ‘consistent with applicable law,’ and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much.”
“The plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law,” the justice added. “I join the court’s stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance.”
Many of the same groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration (which I expose in “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government”) have filed lawsuits to block Trump’s policies, choosing jurisdictions with more friendly judges in order to secure injunctions.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated.