On Thursday, a federal judge rejected a motion from USAID contractors seeking a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to block President Trump’s decision to terminate their contracts. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, ruled that the contractors failed to demonstrate irreparable harm and determined that their dispute falls under contractual law rather than warranting emergency relief.
The Hill reported:
A federal judge on Thursday declined to immediately spare U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors from mass firings, letting move forward a core part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the agency.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said USAID’s personal services contractors failed to prove they face irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits, denying their motion for a temporary restraining order that would have returned fired contractors to employment and allowed them to resume work.
The judge said any harm the contractors face is “directly traceable” to changes the government has made to their contracts, suggesting relief should be sought through a different avenue.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe Personal Services Contractor Association, an advocacy group for U.S. personal services contractors, sued the Trump administration last month to insulate the contractors from efforts to tear down the agency.
In court filings, lawyers for the contractors said notices of contract termination had been distributed to “possibly hundreds” of the roughly 1,110 contractors who work for USAID, some 46 percent of whom work overseas.
This follows a separate lawsuit challenging President Trump’s decision to place thousands of USAID employees on leave. In that case, the judge upheld Trump’s authority to take such action. Despite repeated attempts by activist liberal judges to obstruct him, this remains one area where they have failed to undermine Trump and the will of the American people.
Judge Nichols said in a 26-page decision:
“Based on this record, the Court concludes that the prospect of plaintiffs’ members suffering physical harm from being placed on administrative leave while abroad is highly unlikely. And to the extent that plaintiffs allege that paid administrative leave will harm their members in ways other than via the supposed removal of security protections—such as by tarnishing their members’ reputations or by preventing them from performing their standard duties, those types of standard employment harms “fall[] far short of the type of irreparable injury which is a necessary predicate to the issuance of a [preliminary] injunction.”
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