President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 31, 2025 (Pool via AP).
A federal judge in Rhode Island has thrown a wrench into President Donald Trump’s plans to shutter a group of congressionally-sanctioned government agencies that “support our libraries, museums, minority business enterprises and the well-respected federal mediation services” — issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday that halts their “dismantling,” the judge said.
The executive order behind the attempted shutdown of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) violates the government’s Administrative Procedures Act “in the arbitrary and capricious way it was carried out,” according to U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell.
“It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government,” wrote McConnell in his Tuesday memorandum and order. “Specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” the judge said.
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Trump issued the executive order in question, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” on March 14 and selected seven agencies to have their “non-statutory” components and functions “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” He also ordered the agencies to reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel “to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
A coalition of 21 states, all of them led by Democrats, filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of violating the APA, “separation of powers principles” and Article II of the U.S. Constitution with the executive order.
McConnell, a Barack Obama appointee, had previously blocked the Trump administration from putting a freeze on disaster relief and grants doled out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In his order Tuesday, McConnell noted how “once again” he was confronted with a legal challenge by multiple states against an order that “attempts to dismantle congressionally sanctioned agencies and ignores congressionally appropriated funds.”
The harm caused to the plaintiffs, according to the judge, is apparent.
“The States have presented compelling evidence illustrating that the harms stemming from the dismantling of IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS are already unfolding or are certain to occur, in light the significant reduction in personnel available and competent to administer these agencies’ funds and services and the elimination of certain programs that served the States,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is co-leading the legal effort with New York Attorney General Letitia James and Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez. The other states include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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“Today’s preliminary injunction is a critical win for the public interest,” Neronha said in a statement Tuesday.
“When the Trump Administration attempts to dismantle these agencies, it is making a targeted, concerted effort to prohibit everyday people from accessing their full potential,” the AG added. “They know that these agencies represent opportunities for the American people to better themselves through free access to knowledge through their local public libraries, to protect their labor and employment rights, and to help their small businesses grow. This Administration also knows that through suppressing and stifling access to opportunity, they can maintain and expand their power.”
Requests by Law&Crime for comment from the Justice Department were not successful Tuesday.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
