Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to halt for now some elements of its attempt to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 2019 Trump appointee, issued a restraining order pausing the imminent administrative leave of 2,200 U.S.A.I.D. employees and a plan to withdraw nearly all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days. He also ordered the temporary reinstatement of 500 agency employees already on administrative leave.The judge was ruling on a lawsuit filed on behalf of the largest union representing federal workers and the union that represents Foreign Service officers. Judge Nichols said the unions had established that the employees affected by the leave and withdrawal orders would suffer “irreparable harm.”Judge Nichols ordered the pause in the administration’s plans through next Friday to allow for “expedited” arguments to determine the legality of the actions, and scheduled another hearing for Wednesday.His order was the latest action by a court to slow or limit President Trump’s agenda, following rulings that blocked for now Mr. Trump’s moves to freeze federal spending and overturn birthright citizenship. The cases are part of a sprawling legal battle over Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand presidential authority in ways that Democrats and many legal experts call unconstitutional.Democrats also fear that Mr. Trump’s sudden moves to gut U.S.A.I.D. — which have instilled a sense of chaos and panic within the agency — may serve as a test case for dramatically cutting or shutting down other federal departments and agencies.The unions had asked the court to block Mr. Trump’s dismantlement of the aid agency, calling it “unconstitutional and illegal” and saying it had “generated a global humanitarian crisis” and threatened American strategic interests.They also pointed to the toll on the thousands of U.S.A.I.D. workers who have been blindsided by unsubstantiated charges of corruption and even criminality from Mr. Trump and his allies.Those accusations have shocked and bewildered workers at an agency that distributes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars per year on humanitarian, medical, development and pro-democracy aid, mainly to countries in desperate need, in what supporters consider some of the U.S. government’s most noble work.“They are confused and frightened,” the lawsuit said, adding that some workers had made major life choices “such as geographic location and family planning” on the assumption that the federal government would follow the law.“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle U.S.A.I.D. were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the lawsuit said. “And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees. It notes the central role Elon Musk played in the agency’s gutting. Mr. Musk, a Trump ally and donor, recently boasted online of “feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper.”In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees said it was “pleased” by the ruling, adding: “We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights.”Current and former U.S.A.I.D. officials expressed elation over the ruling, even if it means the agency’s workers still face confusion and uncertainty about their fate until Judge Nichols eventually issues a more definitive ruling.One former senior official also noted that the pause has no effect on Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order freezing nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending, which halted most of the agency’s work. (The administration has issued waivers authorizing some specific programs deemed vital or lifesaving.)Democrats in Congress were quick to cheer their limited victory, with some focusing on the role of Mr. Musk, an unelected billionaire.“I welcome a judicial order to halt the Musk administration’s abuse of U.S.A.I.D.’s work force even temporarily,” Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr., Democrat of Virginia, said in a statement. “The court should uphold the law and put a full and permanent stop to the illegal, unconstitutional, immoral and corrupt destruction of U.S.A.I.D.”Over the past several days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Mr. Trump named as acting U.S.A.I.D. administrator on Monday, has made the administration’s case that the aid agency’s work needs to be “realigned” with America’s national interest. Mr. Rubio contends that U.S.A.I.D. has resisted direction from the State Department and congressional oversight.Mr. Rubio has also asserted, without providing evidence, that some agency workers defied Mr. Trump’s order to freeze all foreign aid. Mr. Rubio has also accused U.S.A.I.D. officials of fighting efforts by Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize their work, forcing the administration to move “faster” against the agency than planned.The agency’s defenders say that Trump officials have cherry-picked a small number of expenses and wildly distorted their significance, exploiting deep voter skepticism toward foreign aid — “the least popular thing government spends money on,” as Mr. Rubio put it on Wednesday.Not only will the swift agency shutdown have a direct cost in lives, they argue, ending its programs will also benefit American rivals like Russia and China in the global competition for influence. And it will comes as a gift, they say, to authoritarian leaders, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who have long railed at the agency’s spending on civil society and other pro-democracy programs. Some of those authoritarian leaders, including Mr. Orban, are allies of Mr. Trump.The plaintiff’s lead lawyer on Friday was Karla Gilbride, who was fired last month as the general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ms. Gilbride, who is blind, was led to her seat by a fellow plaintiff’s lawyer.The Justice Department did not file a brief in the case, and during Friday’s hearing, which lasted around 90 minutes, Judge Nichols noted repeatedly that the Trump administration had not provided much information from which he could draw.Justice Department lawyers argued during the hearing that, even though the government was trying to put thousands of workers on administrative leave, the case was ultimately a collection of individual personnel actions over which Congress has no authority.“To be sure, it’s a large number of individuals,” Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, said during arguments on Friday. “But it is still a personnel action.”Mr. Trump mounted an assault on U.S. foreign aid almost immediately after taking office last month. On his Truth Social account Friday, he wrote that U.S.A.I.D. should be closed down.Before Mr. Trump targeted the agency, which is independent from but guided by the State Department, U.S.A.I.D. employed about 10,000 workers and contractors. By Friday, that number was set to be reduced to only a few hundred people still viewed as essential by the agency’s new leaders in the State Department.Asked by Judge Nichols why the Trump administration was moving so fast against U.S.A.I.D. workers, a Justice Department lawyer said the administration was trying to root out “corruption and fraud.” Judge Nichols said the Trump administration had not cited those factors in its order to place workers on leave.
