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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File).
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have taken “a series of unconstitutional and illegal actions” with recent measures that have “systematically dismantled” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by freezing funding for foreign assistance and laying off or furloughing thousands of employees, according to a new lawsuit.
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday by a pair of labor unions, seeks to have a judge order the Trump administration to reverse its “unlawful actions” and prohibit it from taking additional steps to dissolve the agency without congressional authorization.
“President Trump’s actions to dissolve USAID exceed presidential authority and usurp legislative authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution, in violation of the separation of powers,” the suit states. “These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled U.S. national security interests.”
According to the 30-page complaint, the allegedly illegal actions began the first day Trump took office, when he made good on a campaign promise by issuing an executive order directing a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance for a purported efficiency assessment and to ensure funding was consistent with U.S. foreign policy. Rubio continued the administration’s destruction of the agency by directing the immediate issuance of stop-work orders on foreign assistance awards.
“Shortly after assistance funding was frozen, over one thousand USAID institutional support contractors — and thousands more employees of USAID contractors or grantees — were laid off or furloughed,” the complaint states. “The humanitarian consequences of defendants’ actions have already been catastrophic. USAID provides life-saving food, medicine, and support to hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Without agency partners to implement this mission, U.S.-led medical clinics, soup kitchens, refugee assistance programs, and countless other programs shuddered to an immediate halt.”
Plaintiffs include the American Foreign Service Association, which is the exclusive representative for the U.S. Foreign Service, and the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union in the country which represents about 800,000 civilian employees. In addition to Trump and Rubio, the suit names as defendants the State Department, USAID, the Department of Treasury, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
While not formally named in the complaint, the suit also details recent actions from Elon Musk, with plaintiffs claiming that he and other members of the “so-called” Department of Government Efficiency “gutted what remained of the agency.” Musk went on to claim on X, the social media platform he owns that was formerly called Twitter, that he had been “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” adding that he went over the “USAID stuff” with Trump and the president “agreed that we should shut it down.”
Despite its title, DOGE is not an actual federal government department. Rather, it is a “temporary organization” formed by Trump via an executive order tasked with “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity” by reducing the number of federal workers and cutting spending. The organization is established under the Executive Office of the President and its administrator reports to the White House chief of staff.
The complaint alleges that DOGE employees demanded access to classified systems without the proper security clearances resulting in career civil servants being fired or placed on administrative leave for pushing back against the intrusion.
“Musk posted on February 3 that he spent the previous weekend ‘feeding USAID into the wood chipper,’ and that same day, USAID headquarters shut down,” the complaint states. “More than 1,000 employees — including some in war zones — were locked out of their computer accounts.”
According to the USAID website, all agency personnel are being placed on administrative leave “globally” beginning at the end of the day on Friday, Feb. 7.
