Judge Temporary Blocks Firing of DEI Employees in CIA, DNI
The CIA and DNI offered buyouts to the fired employees.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga temporarily blocked the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) from firing employees involved in DEI programs.
Upon consideration of the filings, the record in this case, and oral argument, the Court concludes that it would benefit from Defendants’ response to the Motion, including clarification as to what Agency regulations are implicated in this case and the potential irreparable harm to Plaintiff John Does 1-6 and Jane Does 1-5. As the Court awaits full briefing and argument on the Motion, it exercises its powers under the All Writs Act and its inherent powers to manage its docket, to issue an administrative stay.
Trenga scheduled the hearing for Monday, February 24. The defendants have until the 20th to file a response to the motion.
The plaintiffs can reply to any of those responses by the 21st.
President Donald Trump ordered heads of agencies to fire staffers associated with the DEI offices.
The CIA and DNI offered buyouts to the fired employees.
The 11 employees claimed:
Defendants ODNI and CIA and their directors, Defendants the Hon. Tulsi Gabbard and the Hon. John Ratcliffe, violated the Administrative Leave Act by placing Plaintiffs on administrative leave for more than ten workdays, despite the absence of any individual accusation of misconduct. Defendants further violated the Administrative Procedure Act. While intelligence officers lack recourse to the Merit System Protection Board (“MSPB”), their own agencies classified internal regulations provide procedures for terminating officers. Officers’ basic rights include notice, the development of a record, to consult with counsel, and the opportunities to be heard and to appeal. Plaintiffs have received none of these rights.
“They say this is to comply with the executive order, which is really dumb because the executive order talks about ending DEI functions. It doesn’t say you have to fire DEI personnel. And nobody is hired into the CIA to be a DEI guy. It’s a rotational duty, like you have in the Army or anywhere else,” said attorney Kevin Carroll, according to Politico. “So, they can simply just reassign these people back to being an analyst or scientist or case officer, whatever they did before instead of firing them. It’s arbitrary and capricious.”
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O judge has the right to exercise control of the President when he is exercising his absolute control of the Executive Branch. Supreme Court has already ruled about this last year. This judge is violating adjudicated law as set forth by the Supreme Court. Another candidate for impeachment. I don’t care if it’s a Quixotic cause. Make these fools in black robes testify before Congress why they are violating their oath of office.
No, it did not. The president is bound by the Administrative Leave Act and the Administrative Procedure Act as well as by all other laws governing civil service tenure and conditions, and the Supreme Court has never said otherwise. On the contrary, in Morrison v Olson it explicitly upheld laws restricting the president’s power over “inferior officers with limited duties and no policymaking role”. That would certainly seem to include these plaintiffs.
The idea that the president has absolute control of the entire executive branch and cannot be bound by any law has been repeatedly considered by the Supreme Court and repeatedly rejected. That doesn’t mean Trump can’t try bringing it again, and hope that this time it will be accepted, but the odds are against it.
No, he is not.
But even if he were, that would be a matter for discipline by the judicial branch. It is not “bad conduct” for which Congress is entitled to remove a judge. Any attempt to do so would be an attack on the independence of the judiciary, which is a foundational principle of our Republic.
Administrative adjuration is available to terminated employees. Typically administrative remedies must be exhausted before a case is ripe for a Request for Judicial Intervention.
They have been fired without any of those procedures being followed. They have no remedy but the courts.
If you have specific documentation, please post it. Otherwise, a Federal Employee may administratively appeal dismissal to Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). This options would normally be included in any termination letter.
Did you not read the post?
While intelligence officers lack recourse to the Merit System Protection Board (“MSPB”), their own agencies classified internal regulations provide procedures for terminating officers. Officers’ basic rights include notice, the development of a record, to consult with counsel, and the opportunities to be heard and to appeal. Plaintiffs have received none of these rights.
They weren’t fired.
They were laid off with buyout packages.
Not the same thing at all.
This is the indisputably correct answer.
Says who? Congress’ concept of “bad conduct” is whatever Congress considers to be bad conduct. Judges overstepping their authority certainly qualifies as bad conduct in any reasonable person’s view – especially when said overstepping is done in the judge’s pursuit of personal political goals.
Violating the Constitution in order to wrest power from the Executive is far worse conduct for a judge than taking a few dollars in bribery for some penny ante case.
Says everyone since the impeachment of Samuel Chase failed. Judicial independence is a core foundation of our republic, and impeaching a judge for his rulings destroys that independence. The senate acquitted Chase because it was widely agreed that the House had been wrong to impeach him, and that it should never do that again.
That is utterly retarded. Fidelity to the Constitution is the core foundation of our CONSTITUTIONAL Republic.
A judge who violates the Constitution is a threat to that foundation.
You seem to think that independence of the Constitution is some core value of American jurisprudence. That is, of course, nutty and stupid. But you often like nutty and stupid arguments.
Oooooh!! A WHOLE Senate acquittal!! Wow. That really is something. That’s like … law … or even, according to your estimation … akin to an amendment!
Do you even think about some of the things you write before you blast off into debate outer space? You should really exercise the old “count to ten” thing before you post.
A whole, single Senate acquittal lays the foundation for “forever” policy according to milhouse. Brilliant, there …
It is not “bad conduct” for which Congress is entitled to remove a judge.
Disagree wholeheartedly here. If he is making decisions that are repeatedly in violation of clear Constitutional direction, that that would be “bad conduct” as far as his job function are concerned.
Now, some court body somewhere might have said that’s not so. But it certainly seems to be so facially, to those not mired in the legalisms.
And, removing a judge for continued un-Constitutional rulings would absolutely NOT be an attack on its independence. It would be providing oversight of that branch in a beautiful act of balancing the branches against each other. “Judicial independence” is not a thing in the Constitution, except as a third branch, and not being subject directly to the “will of the people.”
So then the Congress passed a law which frustrates the Constitutional prerogative of the Executive? Thank you for pointing out that all of this is unconstitutional and needs to be upended by the Supreme Court.
Is anyone else tired of Millhouse’s overeducated nonsense?
Who says it “frustrates the constitutional prerogative of the executive”? The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that such laws, in general, don’t do that. In some cases they do, depending on what kind of employee the law is protecting.
The Supreme Court also wrote Roe and Dred Scott.
So, citing “The Supreme Court said so!” is not really a solid argument. And that’s what you keep doing, is citing precedent when so much precedent is malarkey.
How about making an argument from the Constitution and foundational legal principles?
Well, if the supreme court says so it must be true.
In this case, it does. The Constitution did not intend for Congress to create a supranational branch that exists outside the confines of the Constitution, which is supposed to be the Supreme Law of the Land. And, last I checked, there is no Bureaucrat Branch created or mentioned within the Constitution.
Bureaucrats are all under the auspices of the Executive Branch, which is why I never bought the fiction the Fed and the CFPB are independent of the federal government, despite having their heads nominated and appointed by the Executive Branch, and confirmed by Congress
@chrisboltssr
there is no Bureaucrat Branch created or mentioned within the Constitution
What? I thought it was under the General Welfare clause? You can’t just shoehorn it all into there?
https://aflegal.org/litigation/spicer-v-biden/
“The idea that the president has absolute control of the entire executive branch and cannot be bound by any law has been repeatedly considered by the Supreme Court and repeatedly rejected. That doesn’t mean Trump can’t try bringing it again, and hope that this time it will be accepted, but the odds are against it.
Actually, it is the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION that says the President has absolute control of the executive branch. “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America..”
That sentence means that the President IS the executive branch. All other executive employees only exercise authority that is granted to them through the President. Implicit in that is that the President also has the prerogative to withdraw said authority.
Morrison v Olson would never survive today. One day it will be overturned. And Scalia will rise from his grave and say “told ya.”
Again talking down to the prolls from the seat on high. The word from you is beyond argument and dispute. Thank you for lecturing us troglodytes on how we should be thinking .
TY Mary,
That whole separation of powers thing is hanging by a thread. The political judges not only crossed the line, they are obliterating it for the foreseeable future. Lord help us all if this bs isn’t corrected, now. We need to see clear consequences for this and all the other judicial transgressions.
I think this is one of the unspoken reasons Trump is taking such drastic action early in his second term. He was hamstrung by District Judges his first term and he wants SCOTUS to clarify whether or not the legislative branch or the executive branch has jurisdiction over executive branch employees.
John Eastman talk about this on Viva Frie with Barnes. Great discussion. Look up on Rumble.
Attorney John Eastman talks to Viva and Barnes about Lawfare, Norm Eisen, his disarmament, the 2020 election, Pence, Cheney and birthright citizenship:
https://rumble.com/v6me54x-sidebar-with-john-eastman-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-lawfare-an.html
Eastman’s views are far out of the mainstream, and often wrong.
On one of his most infamous opinions, about the Electoral Count Act, I actually think he’s half right; I think he has correctly identified the problem with it, and I agree with him that it’s unconstitutional, but his proposed solution has the same problem.
No, I’m thinking views like yours and all these other nitwit know-it-all lawyers who messed up the country and the states have been wrong. I’ll take my chances on the guy who is out of the mainstream, Chuck Schumer.
Indeed. Arguing precedent over principle is how you get blue ribbon commissions that always find nothing, instead of getting DOGE, which is the first thing that’s worked.
Apparently it is easier for a sitting (or former) president to be impeached than it is for him to fire low level bureaucrats working under him.
“Gentlemen, we have to protect our phoney baloney jobs!”
Harumph, harumph, harumph!
Hey- I didn’t get a harumph out of you!!
In the meantime, instruct the traitors that they are to stay at home and are not allowed into the office. We don’t need DEI racists in our government offices.
They are not “DEI racists”. They are civil servants in good standing, and there is no basis on which you could possibly know their opinions on DEI. Nor is there any basis on which Trump or DOGE could know those opinions without having spoken to anyone who knows them, which they have not done.
“there is no basis on which you could possibly know their opinions on DEI.”???
That’s right, there is no basis on which you could possibly know their opinions on the matter. How could you know? You know nothing about them.
We know they’re willing to illegally discriminate against Peter in favor of Paul. And to order others to as well.
If (say) a police department has a proven history of basing enforcement of traffic violations on (say) skin tone, it’s no stretch to assume those pulling over folks guilty of DWB every blessed workday are acting as, and in effect ARE bigots.
You just love to make firm pronouncements about things that you could not, at best, know anything about but which we all know (and you know, too) you are completely wrong about.
All people working in DEI are, by definition, “racists”. That’s their friggin job! And no one who willingly does such work, as it is against the interests of America, is in good standing.
Did you not bother reading the post?!
“nobody is hired into the CIA to be a DEI guy. It’s a rotational duty, like you have in the Army or anywhere else”.
That is what some g said, nothing says tat has any relation to the truth.
How often do they rotate Sad Sack in as Morale Officer?
I’m going to side with Millhouse on this one. A number of agencies had DEI ‘assignments’ which were rotated through with one-year turns ‘in the barrel’ so the DEI cruft being passed down from above had some people to deal with it and return the appropriate reports. The people in those seats had real jobs in HR or administration, and got ‘stuck’ with the position as an additional responsibility (normally with no extra pay). This is *different* than the permanent seating that some DEI positions entailed, where rabid leftists grabbed the levers of power and tried their best to warp whatever agency they were in. Those guys need fired and a restraining order. The ‘assignees’ are more than happy to see this idiocy over and get back to their real jobs.
…
They are DEI hires and, if any of them spews anti-white bullshit, they’re racists to boot.
Milhouse, as usual you are being obtuse and refusing to see the forest for the trees. The president ran, among other things, on a promise to end the racism/genderism/nonsense that is DEI. The lawyers here aren’t even arguing that DEI can’t be ended, just that it’s unfair to assume that employees who willingly applied for DEI jobs did so willingly. DEI is a toxic ideology, if you support it at all you will still support it in the future for hiring or promotions regardless wether it’s official policy, if it’s against official policy, or what your current job title is.
Trump, having been burned previously by malicious compliance and malicious noncompliance, and facing open threats of more to come in this second term, is using the willingness to take a job who’s purpose is to officially discriminate as a filter to find people who are willing to discriminate. And remove those toxic people.
In addition, the premise that a govt job slot is a guarantied “job for life” is bunk. There is no “job for life”, lacking a signed contract to that effect, in either military, govt, or private life. Military are Up Or Out or discharged via “needs of the service”. Govt service is usually also “needs of the service”. As it should be.
This isn’t (say) the NYC school system, where those teachers who are either for incapable, illiterate, unwilling, or even criminal reasons unable to be placed in a classroom to teach are instead shuffled off to an entire school building empty of students to finish out their 20 years being paid to spend their “work” days reading newspapers, watching cat videos, or doing crisswaird puddles and sudoku.
What are you talking about? Who “willingly applied for DEI jobs”?
Did you not read the post? “nobody is hired into the CIA to be a DEI guy. It’s a rotational duty, like you have in the Army or anywhere else”.
Congress has made laws governing the employment of civil servants. Congress can change those laws, but until it does so the president is bound by them. These employees allege that none of the procedures have been followed, and they have been denied the rights the statutes guarantee them. They deserve a hearing on that claim. Either the court will uphold it or reject it. And whoever loses can appeal.
So … let me see if I understand you. Your claim is that the civil service falls under Congress? Or you are just happy to try and claim that the civil service is an Executive function but that Congress gets to amend the Constitution through law to regulate how the Executive manages its civil service workers?
Milhouse, “nobody is hired into the CIA to be a DEI guy. It’s a rotational duty, like you have in the Army or anywhere else”. is a claim by the plaintiffs lawyer, not a fact in evidence.
I was in the army, if only as an enlisted. In the office corps there ARE jobs that are “rotational duty”, or a requirement if you want to stay on a given career path or to and get promotions to avoid being “Up Or Out”ed. They inevitably are mission critical jobs that highers need to know well to do their jobs once promoted. Counting messkit inventories, chief morale officer, or any other “George” jobs sloughed off to officers needing to be kept busy to stay out of trouble don’t count.
And if serving as a DEI officer ever IS required either by any military or intelligence service to qualify for career advancement, I would argue there’s something very very wrong in the priorities of that service. It’s not a sign that the job is important or necessary.
It’s unfair to label them all DEI racists. Most are probably just amoral, careerist hypocrites.
DEI is racist, so is anyone in a DEI position. There is an incredibly high probability that they are also incompetent.
I you are in support of DEI, you are a racist.
It’s time to open an office in Utqiagvik, Alaska and transfer there.
somehow the words “these folks” failed to show up
I’ll cancel the cake.
“They say this is to comply with the executive order, which is really dumb because the executive order talks about ending DEI functions. It doesn’t say you have to fire DEI personnel.”
So, does Attorney Carroll have associates on his payroll that don’t have a function? I don’t think so. And to his argument that any DEI related function is rotational you can simply eliminate that stop on the rotation and reduce personnel accordingly.
Man, that’s a poor argument.
They didn’t hire extra staff when the DEI jobs were introduced. They simply took some people off other duties and put them in that office. If the office is now being closed the employees have a right to expect that they will be put back where they were taken from, or given other tasks. If they are to be fired it should be in accord with the laws governing their service.
the employees have a right to expect
No, actually, they don’t. If they don’t have other duties they are also performing, then their position is actually no longer required once that rotational duty is eliminated.
Also, employees don’t have a right to expect a job. Period. That’s not a legal reasoning, it’s the plain simple truth, in a free society.
The “just doing my job” defense went out of favor with Nuremberg. A DEI job, by any sane and valid definition, is a job requiring you to discriminate against and violate the civil rights of one person to favor another.
The kangaroo Nuremberg court judges under Hitler also weren’t hired extra staff, they simply took some people off normal criminal and civil court duties and put them in those offices. And later when the same local where the anti-non-Aryan laws were crafted was used to punish those who willingly enforced ANA laws they had no right to expect a pat on the head and to be put back into their old jobs or given other tasks.
I’ll repeat for the benefit of the class, DEI is toxic, instead of fixing racism it enables and encourages racism and a few other bad Isms. Just as with the DOJ and FBI folks who were willing to order unprecedented and banana republic level shenanigans to prevent voters being able to vote for Trump, they’ve made their bed and now have to enjoy FAFO results.
While this pre-impeached judge’s order is stewing, I think there are lots and lots of bathrooms at the CIA and intelligence agencies that need thorough hand cleaning (probably detailing with toothbrushes) and monitoring. And the CIA guys who wear skirts can be allowed the thrill of taking care of the women’s bathrooms after hours, which is even a sort of gift to them.
At typical janitorial rates.
Their roles as DEI staffers were effectively made redundant and they were offered payouts to leave.
Not sure where the issue is here? Just another case of a district court judge deciding he is the sole arbiter of what a President can and cannot do
A district court judge protecting his buddy, the Administrative State.
For a very long time judges have been fused to the Administrative State – I think because (just like the Administrative State) they are appointed for life. They also see themselves as “experts,” as much of the AS does.
So … there is no actual specific skill or knowledge required for this DEI BS, by their own attorney’s claims? So what purpose could it possibly serve? A role that anyone can do at any time?
LOL. This argument must be some sort of courtroom humor. It’s got me laughing.
That’s right. It is BS, and anyone could do it. The Biden administration decided that the CIA had to do it, so they assigned some people to that task. People who were taken off other tasks to do it. Now that this BS task is no longer needed, they want to go back to what they were doing before.
But, evidently they are not needed anywhere else, so they are now superfluous.
Or do you think that there was work in the CIA going undone because these important people were yanked out of their jobs doing deep cover espionage and forced to teach racism? It seems that that is your weird notion of work at the CIA.
If they are working being racists in DEI and the racist DEI department is deemed no longer necessary then those people are obviously no longer necessary. If they were, they would have been working in the positions they were necessary in.
Look, racist DEI work is very important stuff. They can take their experience being top-level CIA racists and sell those skills in tons of places. Endeavor Airlines probably always has some room for some good DEI experts. Boeing is always looking for top DEI racists – especially if they cross dress and fondle children in their spare time.
I’m not American.
Is the “right to permanent employment without layoff ever” enshrined in the Constitution?
Entirely ignoring the reality that these people were tapped for this duty primarily because they were the most expendable at what they were doing before
I’ve seen some of these groups, and I’m fairly sure you’re right for most of the members, but management normally makes sure to put at least *one* competent individual in the group so the whole thing doesn’t come apart like soggy bread.
what Agency regulations are implicated
If they’re Agency regulations, then they are written under the authority of the Executive.
That’s true. But, the only hiccup I could potentially see is because they’re published in the Federal Register, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) rules are subject to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the period of time where proposed rules/regulations have to be open to public comments before they become enforceable.
But, I’m not sure if what’s being done here qualifies as a ‘rule change.’ It probably doesn’t. And, even if it does, as the other commenter points-out, the EXISTING OPM rules obligate the employee to exhaust the internal appeal process before the merits of their case become justiciable by the federal court. It’s the judge who’s ignoring well-established regulations.
Everyone covered by this court order should be reassigned to The Department of Cable News Network Monitoring.
And submit detailed daily reports of their observations, typewritten, in triplicate.
Siberia
All of this comes down to:
If the Executive can’t hire and fire as he sees fit to accomplish his Executive goals – except where those conflict with Constitutional boundaries – then how is he even the Chief Executive any more?
Can Congress make a rock so big the President can’t lift it?
Where are the actual lines between executive power and legislative and judicial? They seem pretty clear in the Constitution. But the branches screwing up their roles for 100 years has made a hash of things.
See Morrison v Olson, and Humphrey’s Executor. Also see how Selia Law distinguishes that case from those two, rather than overruling them.
Yes, you’ve mentioned those so much I begin to think you have a macro.
And they address the issue. The point is, “Are they correct?” Particularly since they were decided by a bunch of people who grew up in the “screwing up their roles” period. (Yes, ALL of us have. And that’s why I keep pointing back to that foundational question.)
But..but.but.. all of these quoted cases are “settled law” just as we have endured “settled science”. These numerous cases popping up against Trump are not esoteric exercises in jurisprudence. These are time killers and roadblocks from a political playbook. There is a subconscious resonance of these filings with the judges…..call them “dog whistles” if you wish but immediately get their attention and sympathy..
There are times when Millhouse amazes, even himself.
Then, there are days when he puts his keys in the fridge.
There’s an agency dividing line between Line and Staff. (at least where I’ve seen) Staff have 100% rationality for being covered by Civil Service protections. Line officers…range from 95% to about 10% in my opinion. Line officers give orders and make decisions. Staff carry them out. When you get far enough down the Line, they might as well be considered Staff (but there’s some status and responsibility involved). Most Line positions have been converted into Presidential appointees (Plum book) at the upper levels. I believe these positions are Staff, and it makes little sense to dismiss them since they don’t have authority to make decisions at their level. They carry out their assignments, or resign.
… the president has absolute control of the entire executive branch
and cannot bebound by any lawThe question here, which I cannot answer because I have no idea, is which law binds him here? What’s the distinction between these employees and those, already fired in other agencies?
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1BdGYqaXmzNGX
This case should have been dismissed without prejudice as moot not yet ripe for adjudication. By the Plaintiffs own lawyers admission they have not used the internal procedures available to them to appeal.
I would say that being the DEI officer was their last chance before being dismissed for cause.