President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration on Friday implored a federal court of appeals to allow administrative agencies to go forward with controversial plans for massive layoffs of the federal workforce. Moving with a quickness, the court shut that avenue down.
In a 16-page filing with the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the U.S. Department of Justice requested emergency relief in the form of an immediate administrative stay — as well as a broader stay pending appeal of the underlying case — that would overturn the nationwide injunction issued by a Baltimore district court on March 13.
“The district court’s sweeping order compelling the reinstatement of thousands of terminated employees at eighteen different federal agencies is legally indefensible and irreparably harms the federal government every day that it remains in effect,” the reply reads. “[T]his Court should enter a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay.”
By the end of the day, however, the clerk of the court — on behalf of a three-judge panel — issued a terse order that rejected the government’s ask with zero analysis of the arguments.
