A federal appeals court on Sept. 17 declined to lift a preliminary injunction blocking a plan by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to overhaul the department in line with the Trump administration’s policy priorities.
Attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in May challenging Kennedy’s restructuring of HHS, including layoffs and the reorganization of several agencies, arguing that the changes violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Boston-based First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s claim that the states could not show they would be immediately harmed if the injunction were lifted pending an appeal. The panel noted that the lower court relied on hundreds of pages of testimony from state officials….