Judge rules Trump’s USAID dismantling probably violates the Constitution
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WASHINGTON — The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development by billionaire Elon Musk’s White House advisory team probably violated the Constitution, a federal judge ruled Tuesday as he indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from making further cuts to the agency.
The order requires the administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those put on administrative leave, though it appears to stop short of reversing firings or fully resurrecting the agency.
In one of the first lawsuits targeting Musk’s DOGE team against Musk himself, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland rejected the administration’s position that Musk is merely President Trump’s advisor.
Musk’s public statements and social media posts demonstrate that he has “firm control over DOGE,” the judge found, pointing to an online post in which Musk said he had “fed USAID into the wood chipper.”
In its first two weeks, President Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The judge acknowledged that it’s likely that USAID is no longer capable of performing some of its statutorily required functions.
“Taken together, these facts support the conclusion that USAID has been effectively eliminated,” Chuang wrote in the preliminary injunction.
The lawsuit filed by USAID employees and contractors argued that Musk and DOGE are wielding power the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate. Their attorneys said the ruling “effectively halts or reverses” many of the steps taken to dismantle the agency.
The administration has said that DOGE — which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, though it is not an official government agency — is searching for and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, consistent with the campaign message that helped Trump win the 2024 election. The White House and DOGE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
In February, the Trump administration placed all but a fraction of USAID’s worldwide staff on leave and notified at least 1,600 of its U.S.-based staffers they were being fired. The effort to gut the six-decade-old aid agency was part of a broader push to eradicate the foreign aid agency and most of its humanitarian and development programs abroad.
Federal judge removes his temporary block on the Trump administration’s effort to remove all but a small fraction of USAID staffers from their posts.
Trump on Inauguration Day issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all U.S. aid and development work abroad, charging that much of the foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
The lawsuit was filed by the State Democracy Defenders Fund. Norm Eisen, the nonprofit’s executive chair, said the ruling is a milestone in resistance to DOGE and the first to find that Musk’s actions violate the Constitution’s appointments clause, which mandates presidential approval and Senate confirmation for certain public officials.
“They are performing surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel, harming not just the people USAID serves but the majority of Americans who count on the stability of our government,” he said in a statement.
Whitehurst and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. AP writers Chris Megerian and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.
