REDSTATE | Published February 16, 2025
Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan is poised to issue a temporary restraining order that would block nearly everyone in the Trump administration from accessing any data produced by any federal agency or dismissing any federal or contract workers. The order comes in response to a suit filed by 13 states — New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington — claiming “that President Trump has violated the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution by creating a new federal Department without Congressional approval and by granting Musk sweeping powers over the entire federal government without seeking the advice and consent of the Senate.”
The draft order by Chutkan, an Obama appointee who many will remember as one of the most vicious, petty, and vindictive of the January 6 judges, is incredibly and unconstitutionally broad as it actually prevents President Trump from carrying out his Article II duties: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
Defendants Elon Musk, U.S. DOGE Service, U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, and their agents, officers, and employees, or anyone acting in active concert with them, are temporarily restrained from:
(a) Accessing or continuing to access any data systems and the information and code contained within those systems, including but not limited to systems containing sensitive or confidential agency and personnel data, at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce, or any components of any of those agencies, or copying, transferring, or in any way disseminating any data from any of the agencies identified in this paragraph; and
(b) Terminating, furloughing, or otherwise placing on involuntary leave—whether paid or unpaid—any officers or employees of the federal government working within any of the Departments and agencies identified in paragraph (a), other than officers or employees of the Defendant entities, or directing any federal department or agency, not including the Defendant entities, to take the prohibited actions described in this paragraph.
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SOURCE: www.redstate.com
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