Judge rules against Musk and ‘Doge’, finding USAid shutdown ‘likely violated’ constitution – US politics live

Judge rules against Musk and Doge, finding USAid shutdown ‘likely violated’ constitution

A federal judge has ordered Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to stop their dismantling of USAid, saying their move to rapidly shut down the agency tasked with managing foreign assistance was likely illegal.

“The court finds that defendants actions taken to shut down USAid on an accelerated basis, including its apparent decision to permanently close USAid headquarters without the approval of a duly appointed USAid Officer, likely violated the United States constitution in multiple ways, and that these actions harmed not only Plaintiffs, but also the public interest, because they deprived the public’s elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress,” wrote Maryland-based judge Theodore D. Chuang.

He ordered Musk and Doge officials to halt any work meant to shut down USAid, reinstate email access for all USAid employees and contractors and not disclose any employees’ personal information publicly.

He also said Musk and Doge have two weeks to either certify that USAid’s Washington DC headquarters has been reopened or have a top USAid official agree to close it down.

Key events

Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, has criticized the chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts, for defending the federal judge who tried to block the government’s showy deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.

After Donald Trump reacted to Judge James Boasberg’s ruling by calling for his impeachment, Roberts said in a statement: “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

Responding on X, the social network owned by Elon Musk, Lee wrote:

Impeachment is a non-justiciable political question assigned by the Constitution to Congress—one of the two political branches of the U.S. government—and not to the courts

Frankly, I’m surprised that Chief Justice Roberts is publicly opining on such matters

Musk himself had posted a similar comment hours earlier. Lee, a former critic of Trump who had called on him to drop out of the 2016 campaign before becoming a public convert, also shared Musk’s comment and added, of the arch-conservative Roberts, “This isn’t the first time he’s treaded on legislative power”.

Here is more from our colleagues Hugo Lowell and Joseph Gedeon on the Roberts intervention:

Marina Dunbar

Trump’s trade war has had an incredible impact on the popularity of Canada’s Liberal Party, as new polling suggests a stunning reversal of public opinion.

For the first time, projection shows the Liberals with a 55% chance of a majority government, according to the closely watched website 338Canada, which tracks and aggregates national polls, converting those figures into projected election results. In January, these odds stood at less than 1%.

The shifting polls reflect the outsized role played by a teetering and unpredictable US president, and it underscores the incentives for newly minted prime minister Mark Carney to call a snap election in the coming days.

Read more about it here:

Of all that Donald Trump has done since being sworn in on 20 January, there’s a good argument to be made that dismantling USAid was the most impactful, though not necessarily within the United States. The Guardian’s Katy Lay has a look at how the global fight against HIV has suffered from USAid’s stripping:

This year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future. “Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field. “Now that’s all very uncertain.”

Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.

Then came the Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to US aid funding. Now the picture is one of a return to the drugs rationing of decades ago, and of rising infections and deaths.

But experts are also talking about building a new approach that would make health services, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, less vulnerable to the whims of a foreign power.

The US has cancelled 83% of its foreign aid contracts and dismantled USAid, the agency responsible for coordinating most of them.

Many fell under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) programme, which has been the backbone of global efforts to tackle HIV and Aids, investing more than $110bn (£85bn) since it was founded in 2003 and credited with saving 26 million lives and preventing millions more new infections. In some African countries it covered almost all HIV spending.

Judge Theodore D. Chuang’s ruling that the dismantling of USAid was likely unconstitutional landed just as top officials at the agency were planning for it to be completely shut down by the end of September, the Bulwark reports.

Employees at USAid were informed that their jobs will likely be wrapped into other federal departments, while workers overseas will be sent back to the United States. Chuang’s ruling could disrupt these plans, though the Trump administration could also appeal it.

Here’s more from the Bulwark of what was planned for USAid’s final months:

Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, recently briefed staff about plans and pegged a final day for the agency’s existence at September 30, 2025 (notably, when the just-struck government funding deal runs out). According to notes of the briefing, which were obtained by The Bulwark, Meisburger expected that the agency would have a new structure, new names for subsections, and that there would be a “minimal overseas footprint,” with the possibility to expand in the future. They’d be incorporated into the State Department and officials had to “mentally prepare” to go from being agency leaders to senior staffers.

“Most of the madness is behind us,” Meisburger said, according to the notes. It was time to “make lemonade out of lemons.”

But what if you can’t get the lemons home? That’s one of the problems USAID is currently confronting.

Last week, Jason Gray, who was serving as acting administrator for USAID, sent an email to staffers outlining the process for overseas officials to use the agency portal to come back to the United States. According to one person familiar with those concerns, the American Foreign Service Association is seeking information about the use of the portal. As of now, some USAID employees stationed abroad face a Catch-22. Some fear that if they relocate voluntarily, they may not be eligible for all the reimbursements associated with relocation costs (such as the shipment of personal effects). Other overseas employees worry that if they don’t voluntarily return to the United States, they could be fired. But at least that would potentially make the government liable to cover more of the end-of-contract relocation costs (assuming the current administration doesn’t just choose to leave fired employees abroad).

Judge rules against Musk and Doge, finding USAid shutdown ‘likely violated’ constitution

He also said Musk and Doge have two weeks to either certify that USAid’s Washington DC headquarters has been reopened or have a top USAid official agree to close it down.

Judge sets new deadline for Trump administration to provide details of deportation flights

Federal judge James Boasberg has given the Trump administration until noon tomorrow to provide answers to specific questions about three flights carrying suspected Venezuelan gang members that left the United States despite his order preventing their departure.

Boasberg informed the justice department they have until 12pm ET tomorrow to answer the following questions:

1) What time did the plane take off from U.S. soil and from where? 2) What time did it leave U.S. airspace? 3) What time did it land in which foreign country (including if it made more than one stop)? 4) What time were individuals subject solely to the Proclamation transferred out of U.S. custody? and 5) How many people were aboard solely on the basis of the Proclamation?

The government, which has cited national security concerns in refusing to answer Boasberg’s questions, is allowed to reply under seal.

The Pentagon said that fewer than 21,000 employees have accepted voluntary resignations after they announced plans to cut up to 60,000 civilian jobs, the Associated Press reports.

The defense department announced last month that it would fire 5-8% of its civilian workforce, with layoffs of 5,400 probationary workers. The defense department is the largest government agency, with the Government Accountability Office finding in 2023 that it had more than 700,000 full-time civilian workers.

Marina Dunbar

A man accused of battling police with a baseball bat and shield during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol has announced a run for the US Senate in Florida.

Jake Lang, a prominent January 6 defendant, has announced on social media that he is seeking the seat recently vacated by the current secretary of state Marco Rubio in 2026.

“WE ARE TAKING OVER THE CAPITOL AGAIN,” Lang wrote in a post on X.

Lang continued to be politically active during his time in the DC jail, reportedly attempting to organize a militia and creating fundraisers for the January 6 defendants.

Lang did not stand trial for charges related to his role in the insurrection due to continuous delays. He was pardoned alongside about 1,600 others who participated in the Capitol attack when Donald Trump took office.

Trump and Putin spoke about “the need for peace and a ceasefire” in the Russia-Ukraine war

The White House said in a statement that Trump and Putin “spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war” in a phone call that lasted over an hour.

“Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace,” reads the statement. “The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace.”

Putin and Trump also discussed the Middle East, the “need to stop” the proliferation of strategic weapons, and Iran, according to the statement.

Trump administration declines to offer details of deportation flights, argues it did not violate court order

The justice department told the judge considering the legality of deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members that they did not violate his order to stop the planes from departing, but refused to immediately offer more details of their itinerary.

The filings came after judge James Boasberg yesterday gave the administration a deadline of today at noon to share details of how the three planes were allowed to fly to El Salvador even though he ordered that they not depart, and turn back if they were in the air.

In response, Robert L. Cerna, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) official based in Texas, said that two of the planes had already left US airspace by the time that Boasberg issued his order, while the third carried migrants who had been ordered deported through the typical legal process – not the Alien Enemies Act, which is at issue in the case Boasberg is considering.

From Cerna’s filing:

On March 15, 2025, after the Proclamation was publicly posted and took effect, three planes carrying aliens departed the United States for El Salvador International Airport (SAL). Two of those planes departed U.S. territory and airspace before 7:25 PM EDT. The third plane departed after that time, but all individuals on that third plane had Title 8 final removal orders and thus were not removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue. To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue.

Separately, attorney general Pam Bondi and other top justice department officials signed a notice to Boasberg in response to his demand for details about the planes and their departure time, essentially refusing to provide him with what he wanted:

The Court also ordered the Government to address the form in which it can provide further details about flights that left the United States before 7:25 PM. The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were “removed,” before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions. The Government stands on those arguments.

Here’s more on the legal wrangling over the deportations, and Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act: