Washington — In the past month, multiple lawsuits have emerged contesting the executive actions that President Trump has initiated since commencing his second term. Federal courts nationwide have begun examining the president’s initiatives.
The lawsuits seek to dismantle several of the president’s policies, which the plaintiffs argue are illegitimate. These challenges focus on his initiatives to tackle illegal immigration, reduce the size of the federal government, and decrease spending, as well as Mr. Trump’s commitment to end what he perceives as the weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI.
Many of these legal actions rely on claims of violations of long-standing federal laws: The Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and the Impoundment Control Act. These statutes outline specific protocols and standards that the executive branch must adhere to when engaging in particular actions.
Below are details regarding each of these laws:
Administrative Procedure Act
The lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s policies on gender ideology, immigration, civil service regulations, FBI personnel, deferred resignations, cuts to USAID, foreign aid freezes, and halts to federal assistance all share a common thread: they claim the Trump administration and high-ranking officials have breached the Administrative Procedure Act.
Enacted by Congress in 1946, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) established the necessary process federal agencies must follow when formulating new rules and regulations, as well as the manner in which courts assess those actions. Notably, the law’s stipulations do not apply to the president.
“In the late 1940s, as agencies began to expand their operations and often adopted their own procedures for various functions, Congress aimed to standardize the processes that agencies must follow when establishing, repealing, or revising regulations or when taking specific actions through agency adjudication,” explained Adam White, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in the Supreme Court and the administrative state.
The APA mandates that agencies provide public notice of a proposed rule and allow for written commentary. Once the comment period ends, the agency must publish its final rule in the Federal Register, which must occur at least 30 days prior to the rule taking effect.
When examining a challenged agency action, courts typically assess whether that action is “arbitrary and capricious.” This review standard obligates an agency to demonstrate it engaged in “reasoned decision-making” by providing an adequate rationale for its decisions, as outlined by the Congressional Research Service. Furthermore, the agency must present “the essential facts upon which the administrative decision was based.”
“For an agency to formulate a rule under the APA, it typically needs to provide a justification for its rule, and arbitrary and capricious review examines the validity of those justifications,” White stated.
Arbitrary and capricious review tends to favor the agency, which frequently succeeds in cases asserting APA violations if their justifications are “even plausibly reasonable,” according to White.
“The government commonly prevails due to this deferential review standard, but occasionally it loses when it fails to adequately justify its policy,” he noted.
Most lawsuits filed against the Trump administration attempting to invalidate its actions allege breaches of the APA, specifically asserting that the implicated policies are arbitrary and capricious.
In one case contesting a memo freezing federal assistance, a collection of nonprofit organizations contends that the funding suspension is arbitrary and capricious “in multiple respects,” arguing that the directive neglects to recognize the “catastrophic practical consequences” of pausing federal assistance and does not clarify why a review of existing grant programs necessitates this pause.
Additionally, challengers assert that OMB lacks the authority to unilaterally freeze federal financial assistance programs government-wide.
The APA has proven challenging for the last two administrations.
In a June 2020 ruling, the Supreme Court determined that Mr. Trump’s termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program, or DACA, contravened the APA. The court concluded that the termination was arbitrary and capricious, citing the first Trump administration’s failure to address certain issues, including the impacts on young individuals enrolled in the program.
Moreover, in its most recent term, the Supreme Court overturned a rule from the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Joe Biden intended to mitigate the harmful smog emitted from specific states. The court indicated that the states challenging the rule were likely to succeed in their claims, asserting that it was arbitrary and capricious, partly due to the EPA’s decision-making during the notice-and-comment phase.
Privacy Act
The Privacy Act, established in 1974 during the Watergate scandal and the emergence of new technologies like mainframe computing systems, aims to regulate the collection and utilization of information about American citizens by the government.
“It was a legislative initiative by Congress to oversee the government’s handling of the information it gathers on American citizens while providing, to a limited extent, citizens the ability to review and contest that usage through lawsuits and congressional oversight,” stated Paul Rosenzweig, a homeland security and national security expert speaking to CBS News.
The law governs the management and usage of personal data collected by government agencies, stipulating how this information must be stored, who may access it, and under what circumstances it can be utilized or disclosed. The Privacy Act prohibits agencies from revealing records about an individual without their written consent unless applicable exceptions are in place.
These 12 exceptions permit the government to utilize personal data without individual approval under specific conditions, such as for law enforcement purposes or when information is anonymized (e.g., for statistical research). A “need-to-know” exception allows an agency to share Privacy Act records with its officers and employees who require the information to fulfill their duties, while another allows for disclosure under “routine use.”
The Privacy Act grants Americans the right to sue an agency for purported violations. A notable case was by Linda Tripp, a key figure in the impeachment scandal involving former President Bill Clinton.
Tripp accused the Defense Department of breaching the Privacy Act by leaking personal information to a newspaper. She initiated three lawsuits against the agency, ultimately resulting in a settlement where the Defense Department agreed to compensate her $595,000.
Currently, the Privacy Act has been cited in various lawsuits originating from the activities of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), established by Mr. Trump as part of his initiative to reduce government size.
In November, the president announced Elon Musk’s leadership of DOGE; however, the White House later clarified he holds the position of a special government employee and senior adviser to Mr. Trump, not the task force’s administrator.
Since DOGE’s inception on Trump’s first day in office, its personnel have been deployed to over a dozen federal agencies, gaining access to various data systems. Their actions have sparked concerns among labor unions and Democratic-led states, leading to lawsuits aiming to block DOGE’s data access.
“This presents a novel situation involving extensive disclosures and access,” Rosenzweig remarked. He emphasized that while Privacy Act lawsuits generally focus on individual complaints, “we have never encountered this volume and scale of suits. No administration has ever attempted to authorize access to such a wide array of individuals who would typically be barred from access: special government employees within DOGE.”
The allegations assert that several agencies—including the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Education—have violated the Privacy Act by permitting the disclosure of personal information to DOGE staff without individuals’ consent.
“Individuals required to share information with the federal government should not be compelled to disclose their information to Elon Musk or his ‘DOGE.’ Federal law affirms that they are not obligated to,” lawyers representing a coalition of unions declared in a lawsuit against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent regarding DOGE’s access to sensitive personal and financial information held by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
In contrast, the Trump administration claims that DOGE employees possess the proper authorization for record access and are supervised by the agencies to which they are assigned. For instance, at the Treasury Department, Justice Department lawyers pointed to the need-to-know exception, asserting that DOGE team members are agency employees who require the records to perform their responsibilities.
“Need-to-know is determined based on necessity; thus, the asserted rationale for their access is a valid point for judicial examination,” Rosenzweig remarked. “Throughout the Privacy Act’s history, that necessity has been evaluated considering both the asserted government interests and the sensitivity of the involved data. While not formalized, it is a common-sense evaluation that if you truly seek my health records, you better have a compelling justification.”
The cases are in their preliminary stages, and no definitive ruling has been made regarding whether the Trump administration has violated the Privacy Act by granting Musk and DOGE access to agency records without the consent of the public.
However, judges have denied initial requests to block DOGE personnel from accessing some agency systems. In a ruling from U.S. District Judge John Bates, the court determined that a labor union group was unlikely to succeed in their claims that the Trump administration was infringing on the Privacy Act by enabling DOGE access to systems at the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Impoundment Control Act
Legal battles surrounding the Trump administration’s 90-day halt on foreign development assistance assert violations of the Impoundment Control Act, with federal judges overseeing cases touching on the Office of Management and Budget’s memo restricting federal aid both referencing the law.
Established in 1974, the Impoundment Control Act aimed to reinforce Congress’s financial authority by providing the processes for presidential suspension of appropriated funds already approved by Congress. This legislation arose in response to efforts by President Richard Nixon’s administration to withhold spending on funds appropriated by Congress, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The law permits the president to temporarily suspend or reduce approved funding under certain conditions. However, it mandates that a “special message” be sent to Congress detailing the request to rescind or withhold funds before proceeding. In instances of rescissions, Congress must subsequently enact legislation to officially cut the funding.
The administration’s maneuvers to halt foreign aid and federal assistance programs may have been designed to incite legal challenges to the Impoundment Control Act, as they have indeed done.
OMB Director Russell Vought stated during his confirmation hearing that Mr. Trump believes the impoundment law is unconstitutional.
In rulings preventing the administration’s funding freeze while litigation proceeds, judges have referenced the Impoundment Control Act.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan identified the Impoundment Control Act as exemplifying how the legislature forbids “the executive branch from encroaching on Congress’s appropriations authority.” Separately, U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a ruling finding “no evidence that the executive has adhered to the law by notifying Congress” to enact a pause that would be legally permissible.
