CREW filed an updated complaint in our lawsuit against Trump
ICYMI: We filed an updated complaint in our lawsuit against Trump
- Mon, Mar 30 2026 at 2:32 PM
We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss this, Mark.
When he took office, President Trump issued an executive order paving the way for the conversion of potentially tens of thousands of merit-based civil servants into at-will employees, enabling political appointees to fire and replace them with loyalists. We immediately stepped in and sued.
President Trump can hold any views he wants about career civil servants, but what he cannot do is ignore the law and disregard Congress’s design. Stripping public servants of their due process protections is an unlawful attempt to reshape the government and exceeds the president’s authority.
That's why CREW filed a lawsuit on behalf of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and a coalition of unions and labor federations—including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—in partnership with Democracy Forward.
We recently filed an updated complaint challenging Trump’s plan to illegally target public servants, making it easier to fire them and replace them with loyalists.
Should Trump’s plan be allowed to stand, thousands of employees—including those who protect our public health, the environment and our food and water—who were hired for their expertise and serve in nonpartisan positions could be stripped of vested job protections in one fell swoop.
Without the expertise of these talented career employees, the operations of the federal government—everything from Social Security to national parks—could grind to a halt.
To be very clear: This would violate the due process rights of civil service employees and exceed the president’s constitutional authority.
Presidents are not kings. They cannot demand fealty and fire those who don’t comply. That’s why we’re fighting back.
Trump is attempting to reverse course on more than 100 years of civil service reform meant to ensure that federal employees have the skills and expertise needed to best serve the public and to protect the civil service from dangerous nepotism and cronyism. This could also rob career civil servants of the right to receive notice of any reason at all for their termination or to appeal their termination.
This dangerous effort would lay the groundwork to make it easier to fire public servants for any reason—even for refusing to break the law or for standing up to Trump.
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