Executive Functions Morning Roundup
A compilation of developments related to executive power
The Trump administration sent an email to USAID employees on Sunday notifying them that the administration was firing 2,000 workers and putting up to thousands of foreign service officers and other employees on paid leave, following Judge Carl Nichols’s Friday ruling greenlighting these plans. (NYT.) (Nichols order.)
The U.S. military transported about 15 immigration detainees to Guantanamo Bay on Sunday, after the administration had cleared the base last Thursday. (NYT.)
Many federal workers on Saturday received emails from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to describe what they did at work last week, and Elon Musk warned on social media that a failure to respond would be taken as a resignation. Administration officials have given varying advice to employees on how to handle the email. (WAPO, here and here.) (Helpful commentary from Nick Bednar in Just Security.)
A federal judge, Amir Ali, who had previously enjoined the administration’s blanket freeze on foreign aid disbursements, ruled on Saturday that while the administration “cannot continue to suspend programs or disbursements based on the blanket suspension that was temporarily enjoined,” or rely on “post-hoc rationalization[s]” to justify the enjoined actions, it can suspend or terminate specific agreements based on new legal authorities or justifications. Judge Ali also noted that it’s not clear how the government’s claim that an injunction “would raise ‘serious constitutional concerns’” concerning foreign relations bears on violation of the Administrative Procedure Act—on which the temporary restraining order is based. (Order.)
Josh Blackman breaks down the procedural strangeness of the Supreme Court’s order in the Hampton Dellinger case and “commend[s] Justice Gorsuch’s dissent” for explaining why “Hampton Dellinger has no equitable cause of action to seek reinstatement.” (The Volokh Conspiracy.)