'Usurped congressional power': Judge torches Trump admin for trying to fire 10,000 HHS employees in sharply worded injunction order, finds RFK Jr. memo 'contrary to law'

A national tribunal successful Rhode Island connected Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to halt a bid of planned layoffs astatine the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

In a 58-page memorandum and order, U.S. District Judge Melissa R. DuBose, a Joe Biden appointee, granted a question for a preliminary injunction which bars the authorities from "taking immoderate actions to instrumentality oregon enforce" and firings oregon planned restructuring.

The justice took the authorities to task for trying to debar spending wealth already allocated by Congress successful spending legislation.

"In the lawsuit astatine hand, Congress directed HHS to support circumstantial initiatives with the enactment of the Congressional appropriations pursuant to the applicable statutes," the bid reads. "HHS cannot determine for itself whether it has exceeded its statutory authorization due to the fact that determination are Congressional statutes successful spot to service arsenic guardrails to the Agency's actions."

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The tribunal aboriginal rubbished those efforts utilizing exceedingly beardown language.

"[T]his Court concludes that the Defendants usurped Congressional powerfulness to negociate the nationalist wellness appropriations astatine involvement and that the States are apt to win connected their 'contrary to law' claims," the bid goes on.

DuBose, successful ruling for the plaintiffs, each but summarily rejected the government's litany of arguments and defenses – and denied the authorities a pre-requested enactment of the injunction.

The plaintiffs, led by New York state, welcomed the ruling.

"HHS is the backbone of our nation's nationalist wellness and societal information nett — from crab screenings and maternal wellness to aboriginal puerility acquisition and home unit prevention," New York Attorney General Letitia James said successful a property release. "Today's bid guarantees these programs and services volition stay accessible and halts the administration's effort to sabotage our nation's wellness attraction system. My bureau volition proceed warring to halt this unlawful dismantling and support the indispensable services that support our astir susceptible communities."

On March 27, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 10,000 employees would beryllium fired and dozens of sub-agencies would beryllium shuttered successful work of the Trump administration's alleged "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) campaign.

Relevant here, HHS began "terminating the radical indispensable for it to conscionable its ain mandates, and paralyzing it by means of a confusing reorganization," the plaintiffs alleged successful their 101-page complaint.

"Abandoning the Department's halfway functions was not an unintended broadside effect, but rather, the intended effect of the March 27 Directive," the archetypal petition reads. "Incapacitating 1 of the astir blase departments successful the national authorities implicates hundreds of statutes, regulations, and programs. But Secretary Kennedy refused to undertake this restructuring legally oregon carefully. In fact, Secretary Kennedy has since said that helium knew that perchance 20 percent of the reductions successful unit (RIFs) were going to beryllium 'mistakes' adjacent earlier the RIFs were executed."

The justice agreed with the authorities plaintiffs astir the antagonistic effect the layoffs had connected respective departments and sub-agencies wrong HHS.

"[T]his Court finds the March 27 Communiqué and RIF of astir 10,000 HHS employees has launched respective HHS programs into a accelerated freefall distant from their statutory obligations, thereby irreparably harming the States," the bid reads.

The bid spends sizeable clip detailing a database of hardships the plaintiffs person had to endure owed to deficiency of resources wrong the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the affiliated National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

"Critical nationalist wellness services person been interrupted, databases taken offline, presumption of grants thrown into chaos, method assistance services gone, and grooming and consultation services curtailed," the bid goes on. "These are not unsubstantiated fears. Further, nary of these harms tin beryllium compensated by wealth damages. The Court finds that the States person established irreparable harm stemming from the Communiqué."

The government, for its part, tried to support against the suit by arguing the plaintiffs waited excessively agelong to writer for relief.

The tribunal wholly rejected that statement successful a footnote:

The Court tin disregard the hold successful filing statement close disconnected the bat. The Communiqué was issued connected March 27, the RIFs occurred connected April 1, and the States filed this lawsuit connected May 5, 2025. It was wholly tenable for the States to hold until the harms, described successful the astir 70 declarations, were realized. The Court disagrees with the Defendants' connection that "the hold further undermines their claims that they are suffering irreparable harm."

The Trump medication besides complained the states were trying to motorboat a alleged "programmatic attack" connected the governmental goals and prerogatives of the newly-led HHS. This benignant of ailment argues, essentially, that a plaintiff is attacking however the authorities evolves arsenic it carries retired its business.

Again, the justice rejected the government's defense.

"This Court is not persuaded by the Defendants' statement that the States are launching a programmatic situation due to the fact that the States are so challenging the discrete March 27 Communiqué," the bid goes on. "It is this enactment that ushered successful sweeping terminations and administrative leaves that fundamentally eviscerated galore of the nationalist wellness programs connected which the States rely. Contrary to the Defendants' assertions, the grounds does not bespeak that the States are seeking 'wholesale improvement' of a program."

Notably, Dubose recovered Kennedy's termination effort wholly unlawful.

From the order, astatine length:

Here, the Court finds that the Communiqué contravenes legislature directives and statutory law. The States person presented copious wide examples successful which Congress has appropriated funds to the national programs and outlined however those funds are to beryllium used. The Defendants, connected the different hand, person yet to proffer immoderate grounds demonstrating that the planned terminations would not decimate the Congressionally created sub-agencies oregon inhibit them from fulfilling their mandates. The catastrophic effects documented by the States illuminate that reality. In the Court's view, the States person substantiated that HHS is already incapable to fulfill galore of its statutory functions successful airy of the Communiqué. Given that the Communiqué is for each intent and intent dismantling critical, statutorily mandated functions of the Agency, this Court finds that it is contrary to law.

"The Defendants' efforts to represent the Communiqué and its whiplash arsenic a substance of bureau discretion contempt the snub of Congressional mandates is without merit," the bid continues. "An introspection of the applicable statutes supports the decision that Congress ne'er meant to confer HHS the powerfulness to self-destruct. The Defendants present person failed to taxable immoderate grounds that HHS tin conscionable its Congressional orders without applying the national appropriations and employing the indispensable unit and experts who tally its programs."