DOJ Seeks to Stay Injunction Restoring the IMLS

Lawyers for the Trump Administration this week asked federal judge John G. McConnell to temporarily stay his May 13 preliminary injunction ordering the restoration of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

In a May 20 filing, DOJ lawyers argued that the court’s sweeping injunction—which requires the administration to “reverse” any actions taken to implement Trump’s March 14 executive order and blocks the administration from further efforts to dismantle the IMLS and several other agencies—is “akin to judicial receivership,” and is overly burdensome because it requires the administration to “reinstate personnel against their judgment, expend non-statutorily required resources, and restart non-statutorily required programs that are directly contrary to the Agency Defendants’ preferred policies.”

Administration lawyers are asking for McConnell to suspend his injunction until the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit can rule on the their appeal.

In response, McConnell has called for briefs on the DOJ’s motion for a stay, giving the plaintiff states until Tuesday May 27 to respond to the administration’s motion, and giving the DOJ until Friday, May 30 to reply to the states’ response.

Notably, in his May 6 opinion finding for the states, McConnell had expressly denied the administration’s request for a seven-day stay while the DOJ perpared its appeal, citing the potential for further irreparable harm.

Furthermore, in an indicator that may not bode well for the administration, the IMLS case is not McConnell’s only case addressing the Trump administration’s attempts to halt funding for programs approved by Congress. In January, McConnell, an Obama appointee, issued an injunction blocking the Trump Administration’s attempt to freeze as much as $3 trillion in federal funding for programs the administration disagrees with. And in March, the First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump Administration’s bid to stay that injunction.

The seven-count complaint, first filed on April 4 by 21 plaintiff states, argues that the administration’s efforts to dismantle the IMLS are “illegal several times over,” specifically citing multiple violations of "the Administrative Procedures Act," "the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution," and "the Separation of Powers Doctrine."

Sonderling’s Take

The DOJ’s bid for a stay comes as the DOJ provided a status report on the administration’s efforts to comply with McConnell’s injunction. And in an affidavit supporting the administration’s bid for a stay, acting IMLS director Keith E. Sonderling said the agency “has been working diligently to comply with the Preliminary Injunction Order,” but added that compliance comes “with challenges and associated costs.”

In his affidavit, Sonderling confirmed that as of May 5 he has “fully” restored all funding for the grants to states program, including the first three state grants initially terminated (California, Connecticut, and Washington), although, he acknowledged, the agency has to date authorized only partial payouts. Sonderling said IMLS will pay the full outstanding FY25 awards once it receives the remainder of its FY25 apportionment from the Office of Management and Budget.

Of the approximately 1,200 “competitive grants” funded by IMLS, Sonderling said that only 100 were allowed to proceed, leaving at least one competitive grant per statutory program, but “with plans to award more later this summer.”

As to the agency’s staff, Sonderling said IMLS has notified its employees that it would implement "an orderly, staggered return to work" following McConnell's order, including an effort to bring all remote employees back into the office by May 27. But the return-to-office order for remote employees has raised objections from the American Federation of Government Employees, the IMLS’s union, Sonderling said, which could delay the return of some staff.

In a more eye-opening revelation, Sonderling told the court that employees who were “actively involved in assisting the plaintiffs,” who provided “information to the press” or who “publicly disparage[ed] those employees who remained” at IMLS present “at best, an awkward situation and, at worst, a toxic work environment” for the agency.

Sonderling said it is “unclear whether those employees will be fully prepared to support the administration’s priorities for IMLS’s grant programs,” a statement that recalls Sonderling’s comments following his swearing in, in which he pledged to “restore a focus on patriotism,” and to steer IMLS “in lockstep” with the Trump administration.”

Perhaps most notably, however, Sonderling told the court that the “IMLS’s apportionment request under the FY25 Continuing Resolution (CR) was based on compliance with [Trump’s March 14 executive order] and a minimal staffing posture,” suggesting that complying with the court’s order would require “additional funding.”

That’s a questionable assertion, however, as the FY25 CR was based on FY24 funding levels—a point that was explicitly called out for Sonderling by the agency’s now dismantled advisory board, as well as by a bipartisan group of senators in a March 26 letter to Sonderling.

“For Fiscal Year 2024, Congress appropriated $294.8 million for IMLS,” reads the letter to Sonderling, signed by Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “We expect that the Administration will implement the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025 in a manner consistent with these allocations enacted in Fiscal Year 2024.”

Sonderling went on to insist that McConnell’s order to bring back “all of the staff” while “almost half” of the IMLS’s grants “will remain terminated” will result in the agency being “overstaffed, leading to staffing inefficiencies and additional costs.”

Furthermore, Sonderling told the court, the “costs associated with grants, contracts, salaries, and other expenses exceeding those necessary to maintain IMLS’s statutorily required functions will be unrecoverable,” meaning that it is the IMLS that will “suffer irreparable harm" if the injunction is not stayed and is later struck down.

The ALA Case

 The motion for a stay in the states’ case comes as the DOJ is urging a federal judge in Washington D.C. to reconsider his temporary restraining order in a parallel case to save the IMLS filed by the American Library Association.

In that case, Judge Richard J. Leon on May 1 also blocked the administration from further enforcement of Trump’s March 14 executive order as he considers issuing a more wide-ranging preliminary injunction.

In seeking reconsideration in ALA case, Trump Administration lawyers argue that a recent appeals court ruling in Widakuswara v. Lake should apply "in equal force" to the ALA’s IMLS case.

In Widakuswara, a split panel on May 3 stayed judge Royce C. Lamberth’s April 22 preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s dismantling of United States Agency for Global Media, which, like the IMLS, was part of the administration's March 14 executive order, holding that the government was likely to prevail in the case.

In a May 13 opposition filing, ALA lawyers said the DOJ’s motion for reconsideration falls far short of the legal standard required to succeed, noting that parts of that appeals court’s stay in Widakuswarahave since been temporarily blocked as the full circuit considers whether to re-hear that appeal en banc.

With the DOJ's motion for reconsideration fully briefed, Leon is expected to decide on whether to issue an injunction in the ALA case by the end of the month, when his temporary restraining order is due to expire, or be extended again.