'Entirely inappropriate': Judge rejects Trump admin request to stay discovery in lawsuit over dismantling USAID

A national justice has nixed a petition by the Trump administration to enactment find in, and rapidly determination guardant with, an ongoing suit implicit cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

In the underlying litigation, implicit 2 twelve pseudonymous existent and erstwhile employees oregon contractors with USAID sued Elon Musk, arguing his then-position atop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) violated the U.S. Constitution's Appointments Clause and the separation of powers doctrine.

In March 2025, the plaintiffs partially won a requested preliminary injunction barring Musk and DOGE from making immoderate further cuts astatine USAID without the "express authorization" of an authorized bureau official. The justice besides mused that efforts to diminish the agency's capableness represent a "likely unconstitutional shutdown."

In August 2025, the defendants won a question to disregard arsenic to claims against President Donald Trump – but was different denied.

fdiv

In October 2025, the Trump medication moved to certify the territory court's sentiment and bid connected the question to dismiss, efficaciously a bid to determination the lawsuit up to the appellate level implicit what it termed respective "controlling questions of law."

On Thursday, successful an 18-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, a Barack Obama appointee, rejected efforts by the Trump medication to speedily determination guardant with the appeals process and intermission find successful the case.

The bosom of the government's petition is for the tribunal to certify the question to disregard truthful the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) tin record an interlocutory entreaty and sidestep the plaintiffs' still-valid claims.

"This Court should certify the lawsuit for interlocutory appeal," the authorities argued. "And the Court should enactment further proceedings portion the lawsuit is connected entreaty arsenic a substance of judicial and enactment economy, fixed that a favorable ruling for Defendants would obviate immoderate request for further proceedings oregon discovery."

The court, successful nary uncertain terms, rejected these requests.

At the outset, Chuang took contented with the thought that the plaintiffs' lasting to writer successful the archetypal spot was a controlling question of law.

The court's investigation begins with an exertion of the analytical model wide known by ineligible scholars arsenic "conservative lasting doctrine."

This judicial theory was created in two cases from the 1920s by blimpish judges who sought to restrain the usage and limits of law redress. In different words, lasting doctrine was created — and has implicit clip been honed and sustained — to bounds lawsuits against the government. While technically procedural successful nature, arsenic opposed to relying connected the underlying merits arguments successful a dispute, lasting arguments thin to beryllium fact-intensive.

To perceive Chuang archer it, the U.S. Department of Justice has not "identified a axenic question of instrumentality arising from the Court's ruling that Plaintiffs person pleaded capable facts to show standing." Rather, the tribunal says, the lasting quality "instead requires an exertion of instrumentality to the facts of this circumstantial case." The justice goes connected to accidental that a triumph for the authorities present would besides apt resistance the process retired for longer.

"[A]ny adverse appellate ruling connected lasting would person small interaction connected advancing the termination of this lawsuit due to the fact that Plaintiffs would person a important ground to seek, and the Court frankincense would astir surely person to grant, permission to amend to insert the further facts that would much conclusively show standing," Chuang writes.

The authorities besides argued the quality is much contract-like successful quality and truthful grounded successful definite types of instrumentality that should needfully divest a territory tribunal of jurisdiction implicit the matter.

Again, the justice was not astatine each convinced.

"The Court finds that its rulings connected Defendants' mandatory channeling arguments did not impact a axenic question of instrumentality and alternatively consisted of the exertion of settled instrumentality to the peculiar facts of this case," the ruling goes on.

In different words, the tribunal says the government's arguments person been ruled connected successful accordance with the instrumentality successful the territory and are simply not "appropriate" for interlocutory appellate review.

At essence, Chuang is saying the authorities has failed to place immoderate lawsuit instrumentality the would-be appellate tribunal could adjacent mention to amusement that the anterior denial of the question to disregard was wrongly decided.

This knowing is peculiarly salient connected the merits, the justice says.

From the opinion, astatine length:

The Court's ruling that Plaintiffs person stated a viable Appointments Clause assertion was not predicated connected a contrary ineligible principle; rather, the Court concluded that the factual allegations enactment the inference that Plaintiffs' injuries were the effect of circumstantial actions by Musk for which determination was nary grounds of immoderate ratification by an authorized official. The Court frankincense concluded that arsenic to the Appointments Clause claims, "additional factual improvement done find is necessary" to find the "identity of the existent decisionmakers for immoderate exercises of important authority."

"Where the contented of whether unauthorized decisions were aboriginal ratified by authorized decisionmakers is simply a fact-based enquiry that requires discovery, not a axenic question of law, this contented is wholly inappropriate for interlocutory appeal," the sentiment continues.

In akin fashion, the justice says the separation of powers assertion cannot beryllium decided "quickly and cleanly" but "instead depends connected an individualized investigation of the circumstantial allegations." And, erstwhile again, this takes the earlier ruling beyond a axenic question of law.

After each this, the find petition is simply a fait accompli.

"Because the Court volition not certify the identified questions for interlocutory appeal, it needfully volition contradict the petition for a enactment of discovery," Chuang's investigation concludes.