A federal judge on Tuesday blocked billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency from taking any more steps to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, saying their efforts to close the foreign aid agency likely violated the U.S. Constitution.
In a preliminary ruling, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ordered Musk, a key adviser to President Donald Trump, and the agency Musk spearheads to restore access to USAID’s computer systems for its direct and contract employees, including thousands who were placed on leave. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by current and former USAID employees, one of several currently pending over the rapid dismantling of Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency.
“Today’s decision is an important victory against Elon Musk and his DOGE attack on USAID, the U.S. government and the Constitution,” said Norm Eisen, executive chair of State Democracy Defenders Fund, a lawyer representing the 26 anonymous plaintiffs in the case.
Trump told Fox News his administration would appeal the ruling.
“I guarantee you we will be appealing it. We have rogue judges that are destroying our country,” Trump said on “The Ingraham Angle.”
Trump, a Republican, on his first day back in the White House ordered a 90-day freeze of all U.S. foreign aid and a review of whether aid programs were aligned with his administration’s policy.
Soon after that, Musk and DOGE gained access to USAID’s payment and email systems, froze many of its payments and told much of its staff they were being placed on leave. On February 3, Musk wrote on X that he had “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
The plaintiffs claimed in their February 13 lawsuit that Musk seized control of USAID and effectively acted as an officer of the U.S., violating the Constitution’s requirement that such officers be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
They said Musk and DOGE had overstepped the authority of the executive branch of government, by effectively gutting an agency established by Congress.
REUTERS
