President Donald Trump speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House after an unspecified threat at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, Saturday, April 25, 2026, as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche looks on (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration is looking to press pause on discovery in a case filed by a fired former federal prosecutor.
On Thursday, in a nine-page motion, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court in Miami to stay discovery until the government's "forthcoming motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim" is resolved.
Notably, pretrial discovery matters in the litigation are assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Marty Fulgueira Elfenbein. Presumably, other matters in the case are still under the purview of U.S. District Judge Kevin Michael Moore, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush.
In the underlying case, Will Rosenzweig was fired by way of an email signed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in September 2025.
That unceremonious notice — sent while Rosenzweig was out of town with his family observing Rosh Hashanah — came after a conservative commentator drew attention to one of the former prosecutor's years-old blog posts in which he criticized President Donald Trump.
In early August, the plaintiff filed a 57-page lawsuit alleging retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, violation of the separation of powers, and several other causes of action.
"The First Amendment forbids the government from making approved politics a qualification for public service," the complaint reads. "The Department of Justice did exactly that. Three hours after an online political commentator surfaced a blog that Plaintiff Will Rosenzweig had written as a private citizen, before he entered government, the Department summarily fired him from his position as a federal prosecutor."
The court's operative discovery order was issued in late August, delineating how the process would work going forward, and setting a final discovery conference for February 2027.
Now, the DOJ would like to put the kibosh on all that.
To hear the government tell it, "Rosenzweig's claims are precluded by the channeling provisions of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978."
Were that DOJ argument to hold, the district court would ultimately be divested of jurisdiction to hear the case.
The Trump administration acknowledges that Rosenzweig first went to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and that the civil service tribunal already dismissed his case.
But, the DOJ says, the plaintiff has more process available via that earlier route. That is, the DOJ says, he must exhaust such process.
"The MSPB is the appropriate forum to determine whether, as Rosenzweig claims, his removal was a prohibited personnel action," the stay motion argues. "To the extent the circumstances of his removal may raise constitutional questions, that does not confer the right to proceed directly to district court. Instead, Rosenzweig may appeal constitutional questions to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."
The DOJ also previews some of its merits arguments that will be included in the upcoming motion to dismiss — and notes that these dovetail with the MSPB-focused process argument.
The government says Rosenzweig's case "bears many similarities" to a lawsuit filed by the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, in which she claimed "she was wrongfully terminated as an Assistant U.S. Attorney when Article II was cited as the basis for termination."
"In a hearing on Defendants' request to stay discovery, the Court recognized the parties' dispute whether the proper forum for the plaintiff's case was the [MSPB]," the stay motion continues.
The filing offers the upshot of a hearing in the Maurene Comey case:
[T]he Court concluded that "it would be inappropriate to authorize discovery — let alone adjudicate the thorny disputes (over matters such as executive privilege) that would likely arise in the event that discovery is authorized — until the Court confirms that it has subject-matter jurisdiction, except if such discovery is relevant to the jurisdictional question itself."
"Defendants respectfully request the Court to stay discovery until the Court rules on Defendants' forthcoming motion to dismiss," the motion concludes.