A federal judge temporarily halted the firing of nearly a dozen Central Intelligence Agency officers who were working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access programs at the spy agency.
The order from U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga gives President Donald Trump’s administration until Thursday to file a response to a request from the intelligence officers for a temporary restraining order on their firing. The intelligence officers are among the 51 employees at the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who were told to report to work Wednesday with their badges and without a lawyer, an order which indicated their imminent termination, according to NBC News.
According to the lawsuit filed on Monday by former CIA officer Kevin Carroll, the officers are “nonpartisan” career intelligence professionals who were temporarily assigned to work on DEI programs. The lawsuit called their firing “arbitrary” and “capricious” and “unsupported by any evidentiary record whatsoever.”
The lawsuit additionally said Trump’s executive order to remove all DEI positions in the federal government did not go as far as to call for the termination of employees temporarily assigned to these types of programs. The plaintiffs are arguing that while the CIA does have the authority to fire officers deemed a national security risk, the officers who were fired were not seen as such.
These intelligence officers will continue to receive full pay and benefits while on administrative leave.
Some of the Trump administration’s firings in other agencies have also created confusion. Last week, approximately 300 federal employees who were fired from the National Nuclear Security Administration had their terminations rescinded after some members of Congress petitioned Energy Secretary Chris Wright to do so, citing national security risks.
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Earlier this week, the Department of Agriculture said it accidentally fired multiple agency employees who had been working on the government’s response to the bird flu. They said they were attempting to rehire those employees.
“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.