Donald Trumpambitious has once again been slapped down by the courts, with a federal judge blocking his sweeping plan to dismantle the education department and fire employees.
In the latest judicial blow for the president’s agenda, Trump was hit with a preliminary injunction stopping his administration from carrying out an executive order that would have helped him achieve his ambitious goal of scrapping the department.
The ruling mandates the immediate reinstatement of over 1300 employees who were terminated in March as part of the administration’s efforts to downsize.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun found that Trump’s plan could not be carried out without congressional approval.
His ruling also condemned the president’s justification for dismantling the department.
“The idea that Defendants’ actions are merely a ‘reorganization’ is plainly not true,” Joun wrote.
Joun’s order is the latest attempt by the courts to mitigate some of the most expansive efforts by the Trump administration to unilaterally slash and remake the federal government.
It comes one day after another federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from firing two Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday.
Many other parts of the MAGA agenda have also faced legal roadblocks, from Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants to the freezing of federal grants and loans.
The hurdles have prompted the administration to hit out at what it claims are “activist judges” in the judiciary – and this latest ruling was no different.
“Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority,” Education Dept spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“President Trump and the Senate-confirmed Secretary of Education clearly have the authority to make decisions about agency reorganization efforts, not an unelected Judge with a political axe to grind.
“This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families. We will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
The federal education department oversees funding for public schools, administers student loans, and runs programs that help low-income students.
However, MAGA Republicans have long accused the agency of wasting money and indoctrinating young people with racial, sexual, and political material.
In an often fiery hearing at the Capitol on Wednesday, Education Department secretary and former wresting executive Linda McMahon said her priorities were to give parents more school choice, boost literacy rates, and return education to the states.
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