In one of the more shocking examples of the Biden Administration’s priorities, the Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX for not hiring enough migrants and refugees. Now Elon’s SpaceX is counter-attacking in a lawsuit of its own.
In that lawsuit, the DOJ alleged, “The department’s lawsuit alleges that Space discriminated against asylees and refugees based on citizenship status at multiple stages of the hiring process.” Giving examples, it said, “Space discouraged asylees and refugees from applying for open positions, through public announcements, job applications and other online recruiting communications that excluded asylees and refugees.”
Continuing, it added, “Space failed to fairly consider applications submitted by asylees and refugees . . . Space refused to hire qualified asylee and refugee applicants and repeatedly rejected asylee and refugee applicants because of their citizenship status.” And, in a fourth example, it says, “Space hired only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, from September 2018 to September 2020.”
Instead of taking the attack, which many on the right allege is a response to Elon’s defense of free speech on Twitter, lying down, SpaceX is countersuing to fight back. In that countersuit, SpaceX argues that it focuses on merit rather than ethnic or national origin.
Making that point, it said, “SpaceX has not engaged in any practice or pattern of discriminating against anyone, including asylees or refugees. To the contrary, SpaceX wants to hire the very best candidates for every job regardless of their citizenship status, and in fact has hired hundreds of noncitizens.”
Then, really taking the fight to Garland and his gangsters, the suit argues, “But aside from being factually and legally insupportable, the government’s proceedings are unconstitutional for at least four reasons: (1) the administrative law judge (ALJ) adjudicating the government’s complaint was unconstitutionally appointed; (2) the ALJ is unconstitutionally insulated from Presidential authority because she is protected by two layers of for-cause removal protections; (3) the ALJ is unconstitutionally purporting to adjudicate SpaceX’s rights in an administrative proceeding rather than in federal court; and (4) the ALJ is unconstitutionally denying SpaceX its Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.”
The lawsuit then notes, “Given these clear constitutional defects, the Court should preliminarily and permanently enjoin the pending administrative proceedings, declare them unlawful, instruct the ALJ to dismiss the case, and grant such other relief as the Court finds appropriate without delay.”
Senator JD Vance, hitting back at Garland in a letter after the DOJ suit against SpaceX was announced, said, “I was surprised to learn that the United States Department of Justice is suing SpaceX for favoring American citizens in hiring.” Continuing, he added, “It is difficult to separate this new DOJ investigation of SpaceX from the Biden administration’s other interactions with Mr. Musk.”
One other trick up Elon’s sleeve is that it would be hard for the US government to get to space if SpaceX didn’t help, as Russia no longer sells us the rocket engines American space launches had been using and NASA has had difficulty developing rocket engines of its own. Northrop Grumman makes an alternative rocket, but it is not reusable and so is highly expensive. SpaceX, on the other hand, is making space travel cheaper and easier by the day with its continual development of larger, reusable, space launch systems.
