WASHINGTON — A federal judge Tuesday ordered spy agencies to put on hold for five days the firing of 11 CIA and other intelligence officers who had been told to resign or face imminent dismissal because of their temporary assignments working on diversity, equity, inclusion and access programs.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga’s order gives the Trump administration until Thursday to file its response to a request from the intelligence officers for a temporary restraining order on their firing. The judge’s decision allows for the intelligence officers to continue to receive full pay and benefits while on administrative leave.
The judge’s order was first reported by Reuters.
The action pauses proceedings briefly to give the judge more time to weigh the legal arguments but it does not address the merits of the case.
The officers are “nonpartisan” career intelligence professionals who were temporarily assigned jobs on DEIA programs, and the federal government did not allege any misconduct or poor performance by any of the employees, according to the lawsuit filed Monday by former CIA officer Kevin Carroll.
The officers’ imminent termination is “arbitrary” and “capricious” and “unsupported by any evidentiary record whatsoever,” the lawsuit argued. It also asserted that the officers’ constitutional right to freedom of speech and due process was violated by the Trump administration’s actions.
The 11 officers are among 51 employees at the CIA and the Office of Director of National Intelligence who received calls Friday from their human resources office telling them to report to the visitors center at CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia at 8 a.m. on Tuesday with their badges and without lawyers.
The CIA and ODNI did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.
President Donald Trump’s executive order to remove all DEIA positions in the federal government did not call for the termination of employees temporarily assigned to DEIA programs, the plaintiffs’ lawsuit said.
It also argued that although the CIA director and other intelligence leaders have broad legal authority to fire employees if they are deemed a national security risk, that was not the case in this instance and therefore the intelligence officers had to be afforded their rights as federal employees.
The officers’ firing comes amid a wave of terminations throughout the federal workforce as billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body, carry out Trump’s effort to aggressively shrink the U.S. government.
Some of the firings have sparked internal confusion and prompted legal challenges.
The Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that it accidentally fired a number of agency employees who had been working on the government’s response to the bird flu, and that it was now attempting to reverse the firings.
“Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a federal judge last week threw a wrench in the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The judge ruled Friday that the CFPB for now could not terminate employees without cause.
