Trump Tells Federal Agencies to Prepare for Reorganization
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday to all government agency heads telling them to submit reorganization plans within 30 days as he continues to downsize the government.
He told them to prepare for widespread staff reductions.
He issued the order the same day he announced expanded authority for Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to rework the federal government.
Some Democrats are saying they will shut down the government next month when a vote on the federal budget is scheduled rather than approve the way Trump is turning the government inside out.
“We are using all our powers in the Senate to slow down this train wreck,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
He called powers granted to Musk to oversee government operations “illegal.”
They have tried to stop Trump by joining lawsuits that seek injunctions against his orders to shut down agencies and to fire any government employees who oppose him.
Trump appears to be largely ignoring the court rulings against him.
One part of his executive order sets a hiring ratio limit for the federal agencies of one new employee for every four who leave.
It justifies the changes saying, “By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of government itself.”
The order gives DOGE supervisory status over any decisions to hire agency personnel.
“Each agency head shall develop a data-driven plan, in consultation with its DOGE team lead, to ensure new career appointment hires are in highest-need areas,” the order says.
Musk said he is trying to root out “fraudsters” who are cheating taxpayers. He used the example of people collecting Social Security who are listed with ages of 150 years old.
More than 50 lawsuits have been filed in the past three weeks challenging Trump’s policies and actions.
The most recent was Wednesday, when eight inspectors general sued in federal court in Washington, D.C. They were among 17 attorneys general fired in a two sentence email that cited “changing priorities.”
They accused Trump of exceeding his legal authority as president. Attorneys general are watchdogs of waste and fraud in government agencies who were authorized by Congress under the Inspector General Act of 1978.
The eight attorneys general who sued seek reinstatement in their jobs.
“The purported firings violated unambiguous federal statutes — each enacted by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by the president — to protect inspectors general from precisely this sort of interference with the discharge of their critical, nonpartisan duties,” their lawsuit says.
If the attorneys general win the injunction they seek, it would join other court orders to block Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship, to cut off federal funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development and to deny access to Treasury Department financial accounts.
So far, Trump has largely ignored the court orders. He said he would wait for appellate court rulings.
His tendency to push ahead regardless of court rulings prompted Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to make a pointed remark about Trump during a speaking engagement Tuesday at a Florida college.
“Our founders were hellbent on ensuring that we didn’t have a monarchy and the first way they thought of that was to give Congress the power of the purse,” she said.
She added, “Court decisions stand whether one particular person chooses to abide by them or not.”
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