Judge rules DOGE's USAID dismantling likely violates the Constitution
[March 19, 2025]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International
Development by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government
Efficiency likely violated the Constitution, a federal judge ruled
Tuesday as he indefinitely blocked DOGE from making further cuts to the
agency.
The order requires the Trump administration to restore email and
computer access to all employees of USAID, including those put on
administrative leave, though it stops short of reversing firings or
fully resurrecting the agency.
In one of the first DOGE lawsuits against Musk himself, U.S. District
Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland rejected the Trump administration’s
position that Musk is merely President Donald Trump's adviser.
Musk’s public statements and social media posts demonstrate that he has
“firm control over DOGE,” the judge found pointing to an online post
where Musk said he had “fed USAID into the wood chipper.”
The judge said 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 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.
Musk, his team and Trump political appointee Pete Marocco have played a
central role in the two-month dismantling of USAID. In one instance in
early February, the administration placed the agency's top security
officials on forced leave after they tried to block DOGE workers from
accessing USAID's classified and sensitive documents.
The administration, with Musk's and DOGE's support, went on to order all
but a fraction of the agency's staffers off the job through forced
leaves and firings, and terminated what the State Department said was at
least 83% of USAID's program contracts.
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Flowers and a sign are placed outside the headquarters of the U.S.
Agency for International Development, or USAID, Feb. 7, 2025, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)
The moves were part of a broader push by Musk and the Trump
administration to eradicate the six-decade-old foreign assistance
agency and most of its work overseas.
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 foreign
assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of USAID have argued Trump
had no authority to withhold funding that Congress already approved.
Chuang said DOGE's and Musk's fast-moving destruction of USAID
likely harmed the public interest by depriving elected lawmakers of
their “constitutional authority to decide whether, when and how to
close down an agency created by Congress.”
The lawsuit was filed by the State Democracy Defenders Fund. Norm
Eisen, the nonprofit's executive chair, said the ruling is a
milestone in pushback 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.
Oxfam America's Abby Maxman in a statement urged all staffing and
funding to be reinstated. “The funding freeze and program cuts are
already having life or death consequences for millions around the
world,” said the chief executive of the humanitarian group.
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Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Ellen Knickmeyer
contributed reporting.
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