Federal judge startled by 'basic loophole' Trump created to justify 'unlawful' firing of agency president [View all]
Source: Law & Crime
Aug 14th, 2025, 5:09 pm
The president and CEO of a congressionally created independent U.S. agency, subjected to dismantling by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Donald Trump, was unlawfully sent packing based on a nonexistent "loophole" that "makes no sense," a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Sara Aviel had for roughly three years headed the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), a grantor which exists by statute to invest in and promote democratic development "across Latin America and the Caribbean." However, one month after Trump's second inauguration, POTUS and DOGE took aim at the agency and many others like it. In February, Trump issued Executive Order 14217 with the express purpose that "unnecessary" federal bureaucracy "be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law[.]"
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, Washington, D.C.'s former solicitor general and a Joe Biden appointee whom her critics described as "extreme" prior to her confirmation, has already been a thorn in the Trump administration's side in this case, other firing cases, and for Trump's executive orders targeting law firms.
Now AliKhan has issued a declaratory judgment finding that Aviel's "alleged firing" violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. As a result, the "alleged termination was without legal effect and she remains the lawful president of the IAF," AliKhan said. The man who purported to replace her, Pete Marocco, "was not properly appointed as an acting IAF Board member and lacked any authority to take actions in that role," the judge ruled.
Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/has-worrisome-implications-federal-judge-startled-by-basic-loophole-trump-created-to-justify-unlawful-firing-of-agency-president/
Full headline: 'Has worrisome implications': Federal judge startled by 'basic loophole' Trump created to justify 'unlawful' firing of agency president
Link to RULING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26051808/iaf-firing.pdf
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