President Donald Trump and his administration have faced a multitude of oppositional lawsuits intended to block or delay efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce and to cut wasteful and fraudulent federal spending, particularly with regard to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

On Thursday, the Trump administration scored a surprising preliminary win in one such case when the district judge declined to grant a temporary restraining order requested by USAID contractors who are slated to be fired, according to The Hill.

The judge's ruling essentially allows the administration to move forward with plans to terminate hundreds of USAID personal services contractors while their lawsuit in opposition to those plans proceeds through the judicial system.

Request denied over likely jurisdictional issue

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed and confirmed to the D.C. bench during President Trump's first term, announced from the bench on Thursday that he had rejected a motion from the USAID contractors for a restraining order that would allow them to keep working despite having been fired by the administration.

The judge said the plaintiffs had failed to prove both that they faced "irreparable harm" from being fired as well as that they would ultimately succeed on the merits of their arguments, and even seemed to suggest that they were searching for relief in the wrong place.

Indeed, according to Politico legal analyst Kyle Cheney, Nichols said the case was "essentially a contract dispute" that was likely not within his jurisdiction to settle.

That is likely true, as sole jurisdiction over "contract disputes" and other claims against the federal government is held by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and per federal statutes, "district courts shall not have jurisdiction of any civil action or claim against the United States founded upon any express or implied contract with the United States."

In other words, while Judge Nichols was right to reject the request for a temporary restraining order to block the mass firings of USAID contractors, he likely should have dismissed the case outright from the get-go for a lack of jurisdiction over the legal dispute over federal contract claims.

Nichols previously rejected claims made by USAID employees' union

Courthouse News reported that Thursday's ruling from Judge Nichols will allow the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to cut ties with nearly 800 USAID personal services contractors, nearly half of whom are stationed in foreign nations.

He explained that if those contractors do suffer "harm" from being terminated, they can pursue claims or seek waivers through the normal statutory methods instead of immediately seeking district court intervention.

Nichols ruled similarly just a couple of weeks earlier in a case that involved around 2,000 USAID employees who faced imminent firings.

He had initially granted a temporary restraining order requested by a USAID workers' union but later retracted that order upon realizing that the union had "overstated" the alleged harms the employees would face if fired from their jobs, per The Hill.

Good news

As a result of Judge Nichols' Thursday order, the Trump administration by way of the State Department can now sever ties with hundreds of USAID contractors here in the U.S. and around the globe, even while their lawsuit remains pending in the district court for the time being.

That is good news for the administration and, hopefully, the judge's decision and reasoning behind the rejection will serve as an example to other judges presiding over other cases with dubious jurisdiction regarding claims against the government.