Judge slams brakes on Trump's fed workforce cuts

A federal judge issued a restraining order blocking President Trump’s plans for major personnel cuts across the government, saying he has to ask Congress for permission before he attempts such a broad rewrite of the bureaucracy.

Mr. Trump had ordered agencies to pursue major reductions in force, or RIFs, as part of his modernization efforts.

But Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee to the court in California, said the proposed workforce cuts would wipe out some offices entirely and would leave people who rely on government services struggling to get help.

She said the law allows Mr. Trump some leeway, but nothing so broad as what he is attempting.

“It is the prerogative of presidents to pursue new policy priorities and to imprint their stamp on the federal government. But to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his co-equal branch and partner, the Congress,” she wrote in her decision Friday.

The Justice Department quickly filed a notice appealing her ruling.

The White House had defended the RIFs by saying the bureaucracy had spiraled out of control, spending money on “unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hard-working American citizens.”

Agencies were ordered to produce reorganization plans and submit regular updates to the White House detailing progress toward them.

The Justice Department said it was the agencies that actually developed and carried out the plans, so suing the president over his executive order didn’t make sense.

But the judge said she believes the White House is running the show.

She said agencies weren’t talking about reorganization before Mr. Trump’s order.

Judge Illston told agencies to halt current RIF plans that grew out of the president’s executive order or the guidance that followed from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

She also told agencies not to carry out any orders from the Department of Government Efficiency to cut programs or staff to comply with the president’s order.

The case was brought by a coalition of labor unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees.

“The Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to reorganize the federal government has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation,” the coalition said in cheering the judge’s ruling.