Here Are All The Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk—As USAID Shutdown Sparks Legal Battle – Forbes
Over a dozen Democratic states sued President Donald Trump late Friday for letting Elon Musk’s staff access sensitive government payment systems—the latest in a slew of legal actions as Democrats and others fight President Donald Trump and cost-cutting czar Musk in court.President Donald Trump talks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House on January 30.Feb. 7A group of 19 Democratic state attorneys general sued Trump in federal court after personnel from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were granted access to the Treasury’s payment system, arguing the move exceeds Treasury’s authority and could lead to DOGE illegally blocking spending that’s already been approved by Congress (a court order in a separate lawsuit says only two DOGE staffers can have read-only access).DOGE’s access to Treasury systems “puts vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril and endangers the (personal information) of States’ residents whose information is stored on the payment systems,” the lawsuit alleges.Feb. 7A group of states that sued Trump over last week’s sweeping federal grant freeze alleged in a filing they “continue to be denied access to federal funds” even though a judge put the freeze on hold, claiming “scattershot outages” have cut them off from accessing several Biden-era grant programs.Feb. 7Judge Carl Nichols—, a Trump appointee, blocked a plan to put 2,200 U.S. Agency for International Development staff on paid leave as of Friday, part of Trump’s gambit to wind down the foreign aid agency, multiple news outlets reported—a temporary reprieve following a lawsuit by a federal employees’ union calling Trump’s efforts to dismantle USAID without Congress’ permission “unconstitutional and illegal.”Feb. 7The Justice Department agreed to not name the FBI agents involved in the Jan. 6 investigation before a judge rules on two lawsuits from FBI agents that argued the dissemination of the agents’ names could threaten their employment, reputation and wellbeing.Feb. 7The University of California Student Association sued the Department of Education accusing Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency of illegally accessing “sensitive personal and financial information” of about 42 million federal student loan borrowers.Feb. 6Boston-based Judge George O’Toole paused a Thursday deadline for over 2 million federal employees to accept a buyout offer—part of Trump and Musk’s cost-cutting push—as he considers whether to grant a request by federal workers’ unions who sued to block the buyouts, extending the deadline until Monday.Feb. 6Judge John Coughenour in Seattle extended his pause on Trump’s day-one executive order rescinding birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented or temporary immigrants, in response to a lawsuit brought by Democratic-led states, writing, “The president cannot change, limit, or qualify this Constitutional right via an executive order.”Feb. 6D.C.-based Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said only two Musk-affiliated staffers can access the Treasury Department’s payment system on a “read only” basis, after workers’ unions sued the Treasury amid reports Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency accessed sensitive records. (One of the employees given access has reportedly since resigned over racist tweets.)Feb. 5 A second judge —Deborah L. Boardman of Maryland—blocked Trump’s policy rescinding birthright citizenship, in response to a lawsuit brought by nonprofits representing undocumented pregnant women.Feb. 4Judge Royce C. Lamberth in D.C. paused Trump’s restrictions on transgender women being incarcerated in women’s prisons and federal prisons providing gender-affirming medical treatment, after multiple inmates sued to block the policy.Feb. 3District Judge Loren L. Alikhan broadly blocked the Trump administration’s memo halting almost all federal assistance—even after the White House claimed it had been rescinded—while litigation brought by nonprofit groups that receive government funds moves forward.Jan. 31The Trump administration’s memo pausing most federal assistance was partially blocked, as Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ruled the Trump administration cannot withhold funding from the Democratic-led states that sued to block the funding freeze.Jan. 26O’Toole prohibited law enforcement from transferring an incarcerated transgender woman to a male prison facility—at least while litigation filed by the inmate moves forward—after Trump stripped transgender Americans of their legal protections, including being incarcerated at prisons aligned with their gender identities.Jan. 23Coughenour paused Trump’s order rescinding birthright citizenship, the first major ruling against the second Trump administration.Jan. 20The first lawsuit against Trump’s administration was filed minutes after he was sworn into office, as public interest law group National Security Counselors argued DOGE should be classified as a federal advisory board that has “fairly balanced” membership and follows public transparency rules.Lawsuits have been filed against a number of other Trump administration directives in cases that haven’t resulted in any rulings yet, including pending cases on Trump’s immigration policies like asylum restrictions, raids on sanctuary cities, immigration officers entering houses of worship, and restricting grants to immigration-related groups. Multiple other transgender rights-focused cases are pending, including litigation against Trump’s transgender military ban and minors receiving gender-affirming care, as well as a lawsuit challenging Trump’s broader restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Other lawsuits that are still pending include litigation against the Justice Department targeting agents who worked on Jan. 6-related cases, Trump’s “Schedule F” that makes it easier to fire career civil servants, Trump’s firing of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne A. Wilcox, the Office of Personnel Management allegedly storing emails on an unsecured server and the government removing health data from federal websites.Multiple lawsuits are also arguing Trump should not have been able to create Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” by renaming the U.S. Digital Service, while another challenge takes aim at DOGE accessing records at the Department of Labor.None of the lawsuits against the second Trump administration have yet made it to the Supreme Court, though at least some inevitably will. The high stakes of the lawsuits brought against Trump policies, plus the fact that bringing multiple lawsuits against a single policy may result in conflicting rulings, makes it all but certain the high court will eventually weigh in on some of the legal challenges that are now making their way through the courts. It’s unclear how the 6-3 conservative court, stacked with three Trump appointees, will ultimately rule on any challenges, though legal experts have suggested some of the administration’s moves may be too much for even the conservative-leaning court to get behind. Georgetown Law School professor Stephen Vladeck wrote he was skeptical the Supreme Court would back the administration’s memo halting federal funding, for instance. He noted that while the court was willing to give Trump more power in its recent decision giving him some immunity from criminal charges, it would be “quite another” thing for them to give him “the right to refuse to spend any and all money Congress appropriates.” Legal experts have also been highly skeptical of the legal justification the Trump administration has used to justify the order nullifying birthright citizenship, which claims the 14th Amendment—which guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”—has always exempted the children of undocumented immigrants or noncitizens. Mark Krikorian, who runs the Center for Immigration Studies and supports ending birthright citizenship, acknowledged to NBC News in July Trump’s argument is “something that the Supreme Court may well decide against,” and legal experts have previously decried the legal theory behind Trump’s order as a “lunatic fringe argument,” with University of Massachusetts, Amherst, professor Rebecca Hamlin telling NPR in 2018 that any lawyer who believes it is “like a unicorn.”Trump has already issued a number of major executive actions, and many have not yet been challenged in court, such as him pulling out of the World Health Organization, withholding federal funding from schools that allow transgender women in women’s sports, imposing tariffs on China, removing safeguards around artificial intelligence, and rescinding Biden-era climate change initiatives, including ordering federal agencies not to disburse some funding that was approved by Congress. Musk and DOGE have also undertaken a number of controversial moves that haven’t yet resulted in court action, including DOGE staffers accessing information for Medicare and Medicaid and reportedly using artificial intelligence to search through sensitive internal data for the Department of Education.Trump has issued a slew of executive orders in the less than three weeks he’s been in the White House, issuing broad orders on issues such as climate change, transgender rights, DEI initiatives, education, immigration, the U.S. military, abortion, the federal death penalty and more. Musk, whom Trump appointed to lead DOGE and has become one of his top advisers, has also drawn widespread controversy as DOGE has burrowed into the federal government and gained access to government information while proposing widespread cuts to spending. With Republicans holding both the White House and control of Congress, the courts have become the primary way for Democrats to issue any sort of check on the Trump administration’s actions, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has pointed to litigation as a key pillar of Democrats’ response to the second Trump presidency. “We’ve seen a flood and an avalanche of outrageous executive actions that have been taken by the administration and by the current president, but that has also prompted a response of righteous litigation,” Jeffries told MSNBC when asked how Democrats would oppose Trump’s policies, saying the litigation strategy “will continue as we move forward.”One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. 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