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Report from Public Citizen Litigation Group - 2/18/2025 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-19
As a relatively new member of Public Citizen — one of the foremost pro-democracy, public interest groups that’s been fighting the Trump regime in court — I receive periodic updates about the status of their various lawsuits and related activities. They’ve been very busy.
Yesterday I received their latest report, and it is indeed encouraging. While they haven’t racked up a bunch of wins just yet, we’re still relatively early in the game, and the process is still ongoing. Nevertheless, they’ve been aggressively taking the fight to the adversary, have been making real progress, and the results thus far are looking good. And they’re just getting started.
If you’d like to get up to date on the efforts of the legal resistance to fascism in America, read on — and take satisfaction in the progress that’s being made:
HOW PUBLIC CITIZEN IS FIGHTING TRUMP
We have filed seven lawsuits against the regime since Trump took the oath of office on January 20 for the second time. In fact, we filed the first of those lawsuits within moments of Trump being sworn in.
Here’s a recap of what each lawsuit is about, what progress we’ve already made, and what comes next.
Lawsuit #1 — Elon Musk’s “DOGE” Operating Unlawfully
Two minutes after Trump was sworn in on January 20, we filed a lawsuit challenging the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — being run, infamously, by Elon Musk — for operating in secrecy and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
A hearing in this case has not yet been scheduled.
Lawsuit #2 — “DOGE” Invades U.S. Treasury Department
On February 3 — following news that Elon Musk’s “DOGE” gang had infiltrated a payment system at the U.S. Treasury Department — we filed a lawsuit demanding an immediate halt to the illegal invasion of the privacy of millions of Americans whose information is in that system. The suit got widespread coverage in the media, both nationally and internationally. (The American Prospect called it “one of the most important lawsuits in the history of the United States.”)
Two days later, our lawyers filed a motion for a temporary restraining order. And on February 6, the judge issued an order restricting two Musk-connected men already housed at Treasury from modifying or copying the database, prohibiting them from sharing any information with Musk or anyone else outside the department, and preventing Elon Musk himself (or any additional DOGE-connected people) from accessing the sensitive Treasury data while our lawsuit proceeds to the next stage.
A hearing is scheduled for February 24.
Lawsuit #3 — Public Health Agency Websites Censored
On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive requiring federal agencies to “use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’ in all” federal documents. In response, on January 31, agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed from their websites important datasets and webpages, including information that doctors and researchers across the country use to diagnose and treat patients, monitor diseases, and advance public health.
On February 4, we filed a lawsuit challenging the removal of this vital health information. On February 6, we moved for a temporary restraining order. On February 11, the judge granted our motion and ordered the agencies to restore the deleted webpages and datasets while the litigation proceeds.
We will be amending our complaint this week, to expand the scope of the case.
Lawsuit #4 — USAID Shutdown Ignites Worldwide Humanitarian Crisis
The Trump administration illegally ordered USAID workers to stop doing their jobs, terminated contracts, froze grant funding, and prepared to lay off or fire nearly all USAID employees. Elon Musk bragged that he had spent the weekend “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” With USAID in disarray, essential medical care, food assistance, and other critical projects across the globe cannot operate.
On February 6, we filed a lawsuit in federal court to reverse the Trump administration’s attempted dismantling of USAID. On February 7, we asked the court for a temporary restraining order. That night, the judge issued an order blocking the plan to put 2,200 USAID workers on leave and bringing back the hundreds put on leave earlier in the week, through February 14. On February 13, we were back in court seeking to extend the court order. The judge extended it through February 21, as he considers whether to grant further emergency relief.
We will soon be briefing a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to issue a final order restoring USAID.
Lawsuit #5 — “DOGE” Invades U.S. Department of Education
In addition to infiltrating a sensitive database at the Treasury Department, “DOGE” has accessed confidential information at other agencies as well, including the Department of Education.
On February 7, we filed a lawsuit in federal court to block “DOGE” access to Department of Education databases, which include financial information of thousands of student-loan applicants and their families. On February 14, the judge held an hour-long hearing on our motion for a temporary restraining order.
On February 17, the judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order. But the case is proceeding.
Lawsuit #6 — Trump’s Unconstitutional Foreign Aid Freeze
Trump issued an executive order on his first day back in office directing agencies to freeze almost all foreign assistance that the United States provides worldwide.
On February 10, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of two organizations that receive grants from the State Department and USAID to do humanitarian work. On February 12, we filed a motion for a temporary restraining order. The next day, the court granted our motion and issued an order requiring resumption of foreign assistance funding for our clients and others as the case proceeds.
Our next step will be to file a motion seeking to make the court order permanent.
Lawsuit #7 — Illegal Dismantling of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
After Wall Street’s reckless greed set off a worldwide financial crisis in 2008, Congress passed a law creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to safeguard the American people, and our economy, from Big Banks and other giant financial institutions.
On January 31, the Trump administration began taking steps to dismantle the CFPB. On February 13, Public Citizen lawyers sued to halt that effort. The next day, we filed a motion for a temporary restraining order. Later that day, the judge entered an order blocking any destruction of records, firing of people, or transfer of agency funding while she considers the case.
The next hearing in the case will be on March 3.
There will be more lawsuits. And that is far from the only way Public Citizen is fighting Trump.
We have a small army of policy experts who are monitoring the regime’s reckless and inappropriate moves and are filing complaints with the federal and congressional entities that are supposed to intervene. We’re moving fast as Trump is undoing safeguards through actions like firing inspectors general and the head of the Office of Government Ethics.
We have a diverse team of researchers uncovering and reporting on the ethics violations, conflicts of interest, grift, corruption, and outright fraud that seem to be in the very DNA of Trump himself, members of his family, and the assorted shameless miscreants and billionaires with which he has stuffed his so-called administration.
We have world-class lobbyists working the halls of Congress to spur Democrats, and even some Republicans, out of stupor and into action. (This remains a work in progress, to be sure.)
We have experienced organizers in the field laying the groundwork for rallies in Washington, D.C. and all across the country.
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