The federal District Court in the District of Columbia (Randolph D. Moss) has denied a preliminary injunction to invalidate the removal of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who had been removed by President Trump in April. The Court has held that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they are likely to prevail on the merits of their claim or are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief.
The Court noted that “there is a disconnect between the ultimate relief that Plaintiffs seek and the interim or emergency relief that they seek, and that disconnect bears on their likelihood of success on the merits. The principal relief that they ultimately seek is a declaratory judgment, clarifying that the President’s purported removal of the three directors was ineffectual and that the President lacks authority to remove directors from what is, in their view, a private, nonprofit corporation that Congress emphatically insulated from governmental interference. But there is no such thing as a motion for a preliminary declaratory judgment.”
The Court said that the form of relief “raises a host of questions, which Plaintiffs do little, if anything, to answer at this early stage of the litigation.” It denied the preliminary injunction “without prejudice to Plaintiffs renewing their motion should Defendants (or those acting in concert with them) take steps to interfere in the independence of the Corporation.” (Corporation for Public Broadcasting v. Trump, D. DC, No 25-1305, 6/8/25.)
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