Litigation Updates and Resources

• USAID and Related Cases Litigation Tracker 

• Wait! Which Lawsuit is That? : Tracks information on select USAID-related lawsuits (by a former USAID employee)

• Just Security: Litigation Tracker: Tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions

⚖️ Our USAID Community Legal Updates - May 21, 2025

⚖️ AFSA/AFGE Lawsuit: the Government filed its reply brief on May 12, arguing that Plaintiffs have not established that the District Court has jurisdiction over the case, as Plaintiffs are bringing employment and contract claims that could be brought elsewhere, that claims cannot be brought under the Administrative Procedure Act since USAID's dismantling is not final, and that the Administration has broad discretion to reorganize the Agency and decide not to spend funds.  At this stage, Judge Nichols has received briefs from both parties--he may hear oral arguments or decide on the summary judgment.  Plaintiffs have requested a ruling by June 15.

Updates on related cases:

⚖️ National Treasury Employees Union v. Trump: On May 16, a stay was issued in one of the cases brought to challenge the Trump Administration's executive order stripping collective bargaining rights from federal employee unions. 

Two of the panel's three judges wrote that the Trump administration is likely to win its appeal on the grounds that the union has failed to prove that they have suffered the irreparable harm necessary for a preliminary injunction to be issued--because those harms would only materialize after an agency terminates a collective bargaining agreement, and the government directed agencies to refrain from terminating collective bargaining agreements or decertifying bargaining units until after the litigation concludes.  (Note: federal agencies have ceased abiding by those contracts in practice, including by abandoning participation in arbitrated grievance hearings, ceasing collective bargaining negotiations and ceasing collecting union dues from employee paychecks.)  

The judges also argued that the injunction amounts to an “irreparable harm on the president by impeding his national-security prerogatives, which were explicitly recognized by Congress.” The stay will allow the administration to resume implementation of the order while the appeals panel considers the case. It is worth noting that the District Court judge who issued the injunction, Judge Friedman, is also the judge in AFSA's collective bargaining case, where he similarly found that the Administration's reliance on a rarely used provision of the Civil Service Reform Act to ban unions at a number of federal agencies under the guise of national security, served as a pretext for retaliating against the unions for filing lawsuits to block the President’s effort to slash federal jobs and gut civil service protections, and granted a preliminary injunction on May 14.  Status reports are due in the AFSA case by June 9. 

⚖️ USIP Summary Judgment granted: On May 19, Judge Howell of the DC District Court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in the USIP case--Ambassador Moose, USIP Board members who had been dismissed, and USIP.

Judge Howell's opinion thoroughly considers the question of whether USIP is in fact an agency within the Executive Branch (in which case President Trump would have greater authority to dismiss members of the USIP Board)--and found that because USIP is not part of the Executive Branch, the President had no authority to remove Board members.  Thus, the actions taken by the Board members installed since then--the removal of USIP President Moose, his replacement with USAID Deputy Administrator Ken Jackson and then DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh, the termination of USIP staff and the transfer of USIP's building to GSA, are unlawful and declared null and void.

While this judgment will likely be cited by other small Agencies similarly targeted by DOGE, it is not clear what the impact of this judgment would be for USAID, which is much more squarely within the executive branch. It is likely the Government will appeal this judgment, and it can be expected that the Administration will continue to push to reduce USIP's operations to the limits of its statutorily required functions.