President Trump and his advisor Elon Musk speak to the press on March 11 in Washington, DC
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Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images
A federal judge of San Francisco seemed ready to temporarily block the radical overhaul of the Trump administration of the federal government.
The American district judge Susan Illston, appointed by Clinton, held an audience on Friday in a legal action filed by a coalition of unions, non -profit organizations and local governments, which support in their complaint that the efforts of the president Trump to “restructure radically and dismantle the federal government” without any authorization of the Congress violating the Constitution.
Illston seemed to agree with the complainants, affirming at the hearing that the previous one of the Supreme Court clearly indicates that if the president has the power to ask for changes in the agencies, he must do so legal. She continued by saying that the critical transformations of the type that Trump is trying to achieve “must have the cooperation of the congress”.
The complainants asked for a temporary prohibition order to interrupt the implementation of the implementation of planned mass of the administration. Temporary prohibition orders cannot appeal, but the government should call on any injunction that the judge could later issue.
Illston said that a temporary ban order was probably necessary “to protect the power of the legislative management”. She noted that during her first mandate, Trump in fact asked for the approval of the congress for similar restructuring plans.
“He could have done it here, but he did not do it,” said Illston.
The case is only the last in a series of judicial battles testing the limits of Trump’s executive authority.
In legal files, his administration argued that he had an “inherent authority” to exercise control over those who execute the laws of the country.
The government argued that a temporary ban order was inappropriate
Friday, the lawyer for the Trump administration, the deputy prosecutor General Eric Hamilton, argued that the complainants’ request for a temporary ban prescription was inappropriate since how long was destroyed since Trump signed an executive decree to remedy the government.
“The complainants are not entitled to any TRO because they were waiting for too long to present this request and any urgency ” is therefore entirely of their own manufacture,” wrote him and other lawyers in a previous judicial file.
The lawyers of the complainants argued that it is only now that they have been able to determine what the agencies do to carry out the directives of Trump, given the secrecy with which his administration has operated.
“They try to isolate from the judicial journal an illegal set of instructions by not making public how they are implemented,” said complainants’ lawyer Danielle Leonard on Friday.
Hamilton has also argued – as the government has in many other cases involving federal employees – that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. Instead, questions involving personnel problems in the federal government must be brought to the body created by the congress to hear such complaints, he said.
Judge Illston did not seem to be in this argument, questioning Hamilton to find out if the question to be accomplished – a radical overhaul of the whole government – was a congress intended to go through these administrative channels.
Search for mass layoffs and programs trigger
The complainants – who include the American Federation of Government employees and several of its local branches, the American public Health Association and the cities of Chicago, Baltimore and San Francisco – had asked the court to find agencies of the executive order of February 11 of Trump to prepare for mass layouts and illegal frog programs, and to temporarily stop closure agencies and closure agencies and closure agencies and closure agencies and The closure of restructuring plans.
Already, the lawyers of the complainants have argued that agencies, including the departments of health and social services and veterans, perform plans “not based on their own independent analysis or reasoned decision -making”, but instead in accordance with the decree of the president and their instructions for supporting the Doge of Elon Musk, the office management and management office.
The Trump administration defended the decree, arguing that it only provides directives in very large terms, while clearly indicating that all measures taken must “comply with applicable law”.
“This type of directive is a simple means for a president to exercise his undeniable authority to demand a subordinate agency to determine what the law authorizes, then take any measure is legally available to promote the priorities of the president,” the government lawyers wrote in legal deposits.
In court, Leonard said that the government’s capture was not a precise description of the decree.
“This is a compulsory order that asks agencies to start the RIF now and do so in the way the president directs,” she said.
