Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., this week took the Trump administration to task for the manner in which the president has been dismantling the bureaucracy in a case over whether the government must produce documents regarding its plans for mass firings, calling its treatment of federal employees “a slap in the face” to those who have spent entire careers serving their country.
The case centers on a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from left-leaning legal organization Democracy Forward regarding the implementation of President Donald Trump’s February executive order directing federal agencies to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force” across the government. The legal group requested expedited processing of its request and then filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the government to produce certain records by April 9.
FOIA allows the public to obtain non-exempt information from executive branch agencies and departments that do not function “solely to advise and assist the President.”
U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ultimately ruled in favor of the administration, finding that Democracy Forward had not sufficiently established that it was likely to succeed on the merits or be irreparably harmed by not being granted expedited processing of its request.
The judge also noted that preliminary injunctions such as the one Democracy Forward had requested were “extraordinarily rare,” as Congress had provided for expedited processing of agency records “only in narrow circumstances,” such as an “imminent event” that would make the utility of the requested information “lessened or lost.”
“Given the finite resources generally available for fulfilling FOIA requests, unduly generous use of the expedited processing procedure would unfairly disadvantage other requestors who do not qualify for its treatment,” Sooknanan wrote in the 25-page order. “Although Democracy Forward seeks information of immense public importance, at least on this record, it has not identified a sufficiently imminent event that would justify expediting its broad FOIA requests.”
Sooknanan’s decision only dealt with Democracy Forward’s expedited processing request, and emphasized that it “says nothing” about whether the group is entitled to the records it seeks. She reasoned that the group simply had not established that the court should “move its FOIA request to the front of the line — ahead of requests submitted by other concerned citizens also seeking transparency from the federal government.”
“That would ‘disadvantage those requestors who do qualify for expedition, because prioritizing all requests would effectively prioritize none,”” the judge wrote.
Despite ruling against Democracy Forward, Sooknanan took the opportunity to harangue President Trump and his administration regarding the treatment of federal employees, indicating that the government had been using many lifelong civil servants as straw men to justify dismantling the bureaucracy.
“The Court recognizes the tremendous public interest in anticipated mass firings across the federal workforce,” Sooknanan wrote. “The seemingly baseless claims of unproductive federal employees and tax dollars being siphoned off to fund useless government programs have led to widespread confusion and panic. This rhetoric is a slap in the face to hardworking federal employees across our country, many of whom have spent their entire careers serving the American people. And firings on this unprecedented scale have the potential to impact crucial government services in communities nationwide.”
However, she reluctantly concluded that under the current government standard, “Democracy Forward is not entitled to a preliminary injunction requiring expedited processing of its FOIA requests.”
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