The Trump administration is continuing to keep the details of agencies’ reorganization and staff reduction plans out of the public eye, according to court documents the government’s lawyers filed on Monday.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston last week ordered the Trump administration to submit a list of the 40 reduction-in-force actions across 17 agencies that government officials told the Supreme Court are ready for implementation. Illston’s order comes after the Supreme Court allowed agencies to move forward with agency RIF and reorganization plans (ARRPs) on July 8.
In its response this week to Illston’s order, the government refused to disclose details about agencies’ planned staffing reductions and opted not to submit a court-ordered list of dozens of expected RIFs. Instead, the government’s lawyers said the information is “privileged” and argued that there is “no lawful basis” for Illston to order the disclosure of a list.
Rather than turning over a list of agencies’ planned RIFs, the government’s lawyers said they plan to file a motion to dismiss the case within the next week.
“A nearly unanimous Supreme Court decision staying this court’s previous injunction — holding that the workforce executive order and workforce memorandum are likely lawful, and allowing RIFs to proceed — is not an invitation for the court to direct still more extraordinary relief, let alone for the court to order mass disclosure of an enormous volume of privileged information,” the administration’s lawyers wrote.
Noah Peters, a senior adviser at the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in Monday’s court filing that the 40 RIFs across 17 agencies were numbers from “an early, initial step in RIF planning.” He said he has also “been informed” of several agencies now walking back their initial RIF plans. Peters did not detail which agencies were planning to proceed with RIFs, and which had opted for other workforce reduction strategies.
Federal union attorneys, however, said the government itself reported that the 40 RIFs “were in progress” prior to being barred under a preliminary injunction in May. They argued that it was clear the ARRPs would be “imminently” implemented after the Supreme Court’s decision last week.
Over the last couple days, a number of agencies acted quickly to terminate thousands of federal employees, following the Supreme Court decision letting agencies continue with their RIFs. The departments of State, Education and Health and Human Services have all already moved forward with their staff reduction plans.
At the same time, at least a couple of agencies appear to be moving forward only with voluntary workforce attrition. The Department of Veterans Affairs, as an example, said it’s no longer planning to conduct a RIF, but is still on track to reduce its headcount by 30,000 employees by the end of the year through separations, retirements and the deferred resignation program.
Shortly after the Supreme Court’s July 8 ruling to lift a preliminary injunction from May, federal union attorneys last week submitted an urgent filing, requesting that the scope and timing of agencies’ RIF and reorganization plans be released “as soon as practicable.”
The union argued that because the Supreme Court didn’t reach any final conclusions on whether the RIFs violate the law, the district court’s case “can and should proceed.” But without disclosing details of the RIFs, the union’s attorneys said the court would be unable to evaluate the lawfulness of the Trump administration’s actions.
The Trump administration “refused to reveal ARRPs to federal employees, their labor representatives, the public or even in response to requests by Congress, notwithstanding imminent implementation,” the union wrote in its court filing last week. “Therefore, this expedited discovery is required for plaintiffs and this court to fully assess the legality of agency plans.”
Under the initial workforce reduction executive order from February, agencies were required to submit their RIF and reorganization plans in two phases — the first by March 13 and the second by April 14 — with each round of the plans including specific steps and expectations from OPM and the Office of Management and Budget.
The union’s lawsuit in response to those orders alleges that the Trump administration’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act. But the Trump administration has maintained that agencies’ RIFs are only “potential plans,” which “may or may not materialize.” And because the RIF plans are not “final,” they cannot be a violation of the APA, which necessitates that agency actions be “final” to be challenged.
The government’s lawyers disclosed that over the last several months, OPM approved 70 waivers for conducting RIFs across 19 agencies — meaning that the numbers the government gave the Supreme Court last week “likely understated” the number of RIFs that agencies were initially contemplating, according to the Trump administration.
But the union’s attorneys maintained that many agency RIFs were already underway prior to the preliminary injunctions — and that dozens more are now on the verge of implementation following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Moving forward, the administration said any released details of agency ARRPs should be “strictly limited” to the portions that discuss RIF plans, and only for the agencies mentioned in the Supreme Court case. Or “at the very least,” they said, let agencies redact what attorneys described as “sensitive portions” of RIF plans.
But the union’s attorneys are still calling for a much more detailed release of agencies’ workforce reduction and reorganization plans.
“The ARRPs and related documents are highly relevant to the issue that the Supreme Court’s order expressly leaves open,” the union’s attorneys wrote. “The ARRPs and related documents will shed light on the scope and nature of actions implementing these orders, and, in particular, whether defendants are ‘engag[ing] in reasoned decision-making,’ which means that the agency actions must be both ‘reasonable and reasonably explained.’”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
