Trump DOJ says agencies' layoff plans are off limits in legal challenge

By Daniel Wiessner

July 15 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has told a federal judge that it cannot be ordered to disclose federal agencies' reorganization and mass layoff plans as part of a lawsuit seeking to block them from being implemented.

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers in a filing in San Francisco federal court late Monday pushed back on demands for the information by a group of unions, nonprofits and municipalities who claim Trump cannot order agencies to be gutted without permission from Congress.

They said that more than three dozen planned layoffs the Justice Department had referenced in a previous court filing were in the earliest planning stages and had not been finalized, so they could not be challenged in the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in May had said the plaintiffs were likely correct and issued an injunction blocking large-scale layoffs at about 20 agencies while the case proceeds. The U.S. Supreme Court last week paused Illston's ruling pending an appeal, clearing the way for job cuts.

The U.S. State Department last week began firing more than 1,350 employees and the departments of Education and Health and Human Services are proceeding with layoffs that had been blocked by Illston.

Some agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, are terminating fewer employees than originally planned, in part because thousands of workers have quit, retired or taken buyouts. And others are not proceeding with layoffs at all, Noah Peters, a senior adviser at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, said in a declaration filed with Illston on Monday. He did not identify those agencies.

Peters said the fact that some agencies are not implementing layoffs shows that the documents sought by the plaintiffs were only preliminary plans that were subject to change, shielding them from disclosure.

The Justice Department in Monday's filing also said it planned to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit next week.

Democracy Forward, a coalition of left-leaning legal groups that represents the plaintiffs, in a statement said that "reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution." The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union and lead plaintiff in the case, declined to comment.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, the Justice Department in a filing said Illston's May ruling had blocked "about 40 RIFs in 17 agencies," referring to reductions in force or mass layoffs.

The plaintiffs last week asked Illston to order the Trump administration to provide a list of the planned layoffs, saying it was key evidence in the case that could shed light on whether job cuts are imminent and were implemented unlawfully.

On Monday, the Justice Department said the reference in the Supreme Court filing was to agencies that had taken the first preliminary steps in planning mass layoffs.

"Future agency RIF decisions are not part of this case and this Court lacks authority to enjoin them, particularly before they are implemented," they said.

The Justice Department also argued that the layoff planning documents were not final and are privileged because they are part of the deliberative government process.

The case is American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. Trump, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 1:25-cv-3698.

For the plaintiffs: Danielle Leonard and Stacey Leyton of Altshuler Berzon; Rushab Sanghvi of AFGE; Elena Goldstein of Democracy Forward Foundation; Norman Eisen of State Democracy Defenders; and others

For the administration: Andrew Bernie of the U.S. Department of Justice

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