{"id":2141,"date":"2025-02-08T08:46:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T09:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2025-02-08T10:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T10:30:13","slug":"judge-puts-brakes-on-trumps-usaid-purge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/08\/judge-puts-brakes-on-trumps-usaid-purge\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge puts brakes on Trump\u2019s USAID purge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The order comes as the agency\u2019s more than 2,000 employees fight to prevent it from being shut down<\/strong><\/p>\n

A federal judge has temporarily barred the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington\u2019s primary vehicle for funding political projects abroad, from putting thousands of employees on paid leave. The order was in response to a lawsuit filed by two labor unions representing federal workers.<\/p>\n

A \u201climited,\u201d<\/em> temporary restraining order issued by Judge Carl Nichols in the US District Court in Washington, DC, on Friday, banned the US government from placing around 2,200 USAID workers on administrative leave or evacuating them from their host countries before the end of the day on February 14. The ruling also reinstates some 500 employees who had already been furloughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until that date, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date, and no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave before that date,\u201d<\/em> the order reads.<\/p>\n

A request for a longer-term pause will be considered at a hearing on Wednesday, according to the ruling.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Friday, Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group filed suit on behalf of two labor unions representing federal workers. The two unions are the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents thousands of foreign service officers working for USAID.<\/p>\n

\n
\n READ MORE: <\/span>USAID corruption at \u2018unexplainable\u2019 level \u2013 Trump
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump suspended all US foreign aid, pending a three-month review, in one of his first executive orders after taking office on January 20. The decision is part of a broader plan to significantly reduce government spending. Subsequently, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suspended a number of projects assigned to USAID.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Trump claimed that the agency had funneled billions of taxpayer money into media companies to foster positive media coverage of Democrats. Meanwhile, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, leading the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is evaluating federal agencies\u2019 spending, has branded USAID a \u201ccriminal organization\u201d<\/em> and claimed it funded bioweapon research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The order comes as the agency\u2019s more than 2,000 employees fight to prevent it from being shut down A federal judge has temporarily barred the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington\u2019s primary vehicle for funding political projects abroad, from putting thousands of employees on paid leave. The order was in response to a lawsuit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}