Background
Nineteen career intelligence officers at the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were working in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) positions when President Trump issued Executive Orders 14151 and 14173 in January 2025, directing all federal agencies to terminate DEIA offices and positions. The Office of Personnel Management issued memoranda directing agencies to place DEIA employees on paid administrative leave and implement reduction-in-force (RIF) procedures. The CIA and ODNI subsequently terminated the Intelligence Officers, refusing or limiting their access to reassignment and internal appeal procedures established by the Agencies’ own Termination Regulation (Agency Regulation 4-16).
The Intelligence Officers filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging violation of their Fifth Amendment procedural due process rights. The district court initially denied their motion for a temporary restraining order but later granted their motion for a preliminary injunction, requiring the Agencies to comply with the Termination Regulation’s reassignment and appeal procedures. The Agencies appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction, holding that federal courts possess jurisdiction to review constitutional challenges to intelligence agency termination decisions, even though the National Security Act precluded judicial review of the merits of those decisions. The court found that the Termination Regulation creates protected property interests in two specific procedural rights for employees terminated in RIFs: the right to seek reassignment within the Agency and the right to appeal the termination internally. By denying these rights, the CIA and ODNI violated the Intelligence Officers’ Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting preliminary injunction relief. The court found that the Intelligence Officers demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their due process claims, faced irreparable harm from deprivation of constitutional rights and reputational injury, that the balance of equities favored them given the minimal burden on the Agencies of following their own procedures, and that the public interest supported preserving the services of experienced national security personnel. The court emphasized that the broad discretionary language in the National Security Act regarding termination authority does not eliminate the requirement that Agencies follow their own binding regulations.
Key Takeaways
- Agency regulations create enforceable procedural property interests that trigger Fifth Amendment due process protections, even when underlying statutes grant broad termination discretion.
- Constitutional due process rights attach to terminations that implicate specific procedurally protected rights, independent of whether an employee has a right to continued employment.
- Executive policy priorities do not automatically override existing agency procedures, and agencies cannot simply ignore their own regulations to implement executive directives.
- Federal courts have jurisdiction to review constitutional challenges to intelligence agency personnel decisions, even though merits review of termination discretion is precluded by statute.
Why It Matters
This decision imposes meaningful constraints on agency action in the national security context. While the National Security Act grants intelligence agency directors extraordinarily broad discretion to terminate employees “whenever the Director deems the termination necessary or advisable in the interests of the United States,” the Fourth Circuit holds that this discretion is not absolute when the agencies have adopted binding regulations establishing specific procedures. The ruling suggests that executive orders—even those directed at broad policy priorities like eliminating DEIA programs—cannot simply override existing employee protections without the agencies following their own procedural requirements.
The case is significant for federal employees and intelligence community personnel because it provides a constitutional hook for challenging terminations that violate agency procedures, bypassing the National Security Act’s bar on judicial review of termination merits. For the broader administrative law context, it reinforces the doctrine that agencies cannot disregard their own regulations, and that procedural regularity requirements can create enforceable rights even in areas where agency discretion is nominally unreviewable. The decision may complicate implementation of executive initiatives that require rapid personnel changes, by requiring compliance with established termination procedures.
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