The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a decisive blow to the left’s relentless lawfare on Friday.
The court granted an emergency stay, suspending a lower court’s absurd preliminary injunction that sought to hamstring Elon Musk, the United States DOGE Service, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from carrying out their mission to streamline a bloated and inefficient government—starting with the outdated United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The original ruling, handed down by a Maryland district court on March 18 by Judge Theodore Chuang, was a textbook case of judicial overreach, cheered on by 26 anonymous USAID bureaucrats desperate to cling to their cushy government gigs.
Judge Chuang, an appointee of Barack Obama, issued a 68-page opinion asserting that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) initiative to dissolve USAID likely violated the Constitution.
He ordered the restoration of email and computer access to all USAID employees, including those placed on administrative leave, effectively halting the administration’s cost-cutting measures.
These “J. Does 1-26” whined that Musk and Trump’s DOGE team were trampling the Constitution by daring to cut waste, cancel contracts, and shut down an agency that’s long outlived its usefulness.
They cried about the Appointments Clause and separation of powers, claiming Musk—a private citizen turned Senior Advisor to the President—was somehow illegally acting as DOGE’s “Administrator.”
Judge Chuang, predictably sympathetic to the swamp, slapped an injunction on Musk and his team, ordering them to restore USAID’s bloated systems and halt any further “dismantling.”
But the Fourth Circuit saw through the nonsense. In a sharply worded order, Judges A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. and Paul Victor Niemeyer shredded the lower court’s logic, finding that Trump’s team made a “strong showing” they’d win on appeal. The evidence? Overwhelming.
Musk isn’t some rogue “Officer of the United States” requiring Senate confirmation—he’s a trusted advisor executing the President’s Article II authority to run the Executive Branch as he sees fit.
USAID’s shutdown wasn’t Musk’s unilateral doing; it was greenlit by duly appointed heavyweights like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Administrator Peter Marocco.
The court scoffed at the plaintiffs’ reliance on Musk’s X posts and news clippings, noting there’s zero proof he acted without proper authorization.
The Fourth Circuit didn’t stop there. It dismantled the district court’s flimsy claims of “irreparable harm” to these anonymous plaintiffs—fears of unpaid bills, hurt feelings from Musk’s blunt talk, and vague worries about data breaches.
“Subjective fear doesn’t cut it,” the judges ruled, pointing out that any real damages could be fixed with money, not a sweeping injunction.
The court ruled reviewed by The Gateway Pundit, “The district court found irreparable harm based on subjective fear of a lack of physical security, fear of nonpayment of expenses, fear their reputations will be harmed by the negative comments of defendants about USAID employees and contractors and fear that their confidential information might be exposed. But subjective fear that is remote and speculative is insufficient to show the required actual and imminent harm to establish irreparability.”
Meanwhile, the harm to Trump’s administration without a stay? Irreparable.
The lower court’s order would’ve crippled the President’s ability to enact his efficiency agenda, tying the hands of an Executive Branch elected to drain the swamp.
Read the ruling below:
The post BREAKING: Fourth Circuit Delivers Crushing Blow to Left’s Lawfare — Grants Emergency Stay Protecting Elon Musk, DOGE, and Gov’t Efficiency Mission from USAID Operation appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.