In a move that would be shocking if America’s highest court hadn’t already left a trail horror in its wake, SCOTUS intervened on behalf of Donald Trump to rubber-stamp his vendetta gutting the federal workforce. As Jacob Knutson reports for Democracy Docket, the six Republican jurists overruled multiple lower-court rulings to allow Trump’s destruction op to proceed:
The Supreme Court Tuesday allowed Donald Trump to proceed with slashing the federal workforce through mass layoffs as part of an effort to transform the executive branch in his image. In another major legal win for Trump from SCOTUS, the court granted the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower court order preventing federal agencies from making plans for large-scale federal layoffs called ‘reductions in force.’ At the center of the case is a memo sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directing federal agencies to develop agency reorganization plans using reductions in force. The memo was prompted by an executive order from Trump mandating a ‘critical transformation’ of the federal government.
Plaintiffs objected to Trump’s memo on the grounds that Office of Personnel Management (led in an acting capacity by Trump associate Charles Ezell) was breaking federal law by attempting to “carry out reductions in federal workforce” without Congress. All lower courts agreed until it reached SCOTUS.
A coalition of labor unions, non-profits and local governments alleged that OPM violated federal law in ordering agencies to carry out reductions in force. Federal Judge Susan Illston, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, sided with the plaintiffs and ordered a temporary pause on the mass layoffs as litigation continued, saying that Trump exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing. ‘As history demonstrates, Presidents may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,’ Illston wrote.
For his part, Ezell got to work immediately firing off memos (some of them ghostwritten by Project 2025 operatives) before Trump’s inauguration ink was dry. Almost just as quickly, OPM became the apparent scene of a crime, according to a whistleblower, who stated the agency had been “compromised and taken over.”
