As President Donald Trump’s second administration continued its effort to swiftly reshape the federal government, a union representing foreign service officers at the U.S. Agency for International Development accused the administration of failing to comply with last week’s temporary restraining order to prevent the dismantling of USAID.
Also Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 11 DEI and 160 environmental justice staffers have been placed on leave as the agency tries to comply with Trump’s executive orders.
And Trump signed an executive order that enforces the work of the Department of Government Efficiency and enables Elon Musk to implement plans to slash the federal workforce. The two appeared together in the Oval Office, where Musk took questions for the first time since launching DOGE.
‘Adherence to the rule of law is paramount,’ American Bar Association says
Amid the flurry of lawsuits and hearings surrounding the Trump administration, the American Bar Association — the country’s largest legal organization — issued a stark warning Tuesday about the White House’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself.”
“Americans know there is a right way and a wrong way to proceed. What is being done is not the right way to pursue the change that is sought in our system of government,” ABA President William Bay wrote.
The statement noted that lawyers — who comprise 30 percent of House, more than half of sitting senators, and the vice president — should remember that while “everything can be more efficient … adherence to the rule of law is paramount.”
-ABC News’ Peter Charalambous
Feb 11, 2025, 9:08 PM +07
Trump criticizes ‘highly political judges’ slowing efforts to investigate fraud
Trump criticized “certain activists and highly political judges” who he says want to “slow down” or stop his administration’s efforts to investigate “FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE.”
Trump did not criticize a specific federal judge in his Truth Social post, but it came after he called the blocking of some of his executive actions by court order “bad rulings” in an interview that aired Monday night. It also comes after Vice President JD Vance said on social media that judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Trump added: “Losing this momentum will be very detrimental to finding the TRUTH, which is turning out to be a disaster for those involved in running our Government.”
