You’re Not Hired! President Trump Imposes Executive Agency Hiring Freeze
Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.24.17
On January 23, 2017, President Trump issued a memorandum imposing a freeze, which prohibits all executive agencies from hiring federal civilian employees to fill positions that were vacant as of noon on January 22, 2017 or creating new positions. Though agencies are forbidden from “[c]ontracting outside the government to circumvent” this prohibition, some exemptions exist, namely for military personnel, for positions that executive agency and department heads deem “necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities[,]” and as the Office of Personnel Management Director determines are “otherwise necessary.” Per the memorandum, the freeze is scheduled to expire upon implementation of a long-term Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plan “to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through attrition[,]” which OMB must recommend within 90 days of the memorandum’s date.
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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
