The Trump administration, including President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, has brought faith back to the U.S. government. Photo courtesy of the Presidential Prayer Team.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), a secular advocacy organization founded in 1947, has filed two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Labor, alleging both agencies illegally withheld public records related to monthly Christian prayer services organized by their respective department heads.
The suits, filed March 23, 2026, in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., are procedural in nature and do not directly challenge the constitutionality of the prayer services.
They are the fourth and fifth FOIA lawsuits AU has filed against the Trump administration, following earlier suits against the Departments of Health and Human Services, State, and Veterans Affairs over implementation of the president’s February 2025 executive order aimed at eradicating anti-Christian bias in the federal government.
The prayer services began in May 2025, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth organized the first “Secretary’s Christian Prayer and Worship Service” during a workday at the Pentagon auditorium.
The event was broadcast live on the Department of War’s internal television network, and all department employees were invited to attend. Hegseth’s pastor, Brooks Potteiger of Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a congregation of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, delivered the first address. The services have continued monthly since.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer launched a parallel initiative at the Department of Labor in December 2025, citing Hegseth’s services as her inspiration.
At the inaugural DOL service on December 10, Chavez-DeRemer spoke of her Catholic faith and said the country would “probably need a little more prayer” as it marked its 250th year. The services have also continued monthly at Labor.
When a federal agency organizes an official event, it generates a paper trail subject to FOIA, meaning any member of the public can formally request those records.
AU submitted requests to both agencies in December 2025 seeking communications with employees, contractors, and other agencies about the services; costs; the time employees spent coordinating them; invited speakers and transcripts; and any internal complaints. Under FOIA, agencies are legally required to respond within 20 business days.
When neither agency did, AU sued to compel disclosure. The records AU is demanding almost certainly exist. Invitations were drafted and distributed, making them government records subject to FOIA.
The Pentagon auditorium requires staffing, audio-visual support, and security, all of which generate cost records. Bringing in outside speakers requires correspondence or contracts.
The services were broadcast on DOD’s internal network, which requires technical coordination that produces documentation. Any employee who filed a formal objection would have generated a complaint record.
The gap between AU’s legal argument and its public statements is worth noting. The legal basis of the current suits is entirely procedural, as agencies did not respond to records requests on time.
But AU’s public statements go further, with President and CEO Rachel Laser accusing Hegseth and Chavez-DeRemer of abusing government positions and taxpayer resources to impose religion on federal workers, and claiming that even voluntary services carry implicit coercion because employees may feel pressure to attend to appease superiors.
That coercion argument is an assertion, not an established fact. AU has not produced evidence that any employee was disciplined or penalized for not attending. A court ruling on the FOIA suits will not address it.
The FOIA suits appear to be a first step toward a more substantive constitutional challenge. However, despite its widespread use in political debate, the phrase “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Federalist Papers, and therefore has no legal standing. Consequently, claiming that a prayer service violates the separation of church and state would have no legal weight in court.
If the records reveal significant taxpayer expenditure on the services, evidence of employee pressure through official channels, or internal complaints that were ignored, that material could form the factual foundation for an Establishment Clause lawsuit. Without the records, such a case would be speculative.
The strategy of filing a FOIA request, suing when agencies do not comply, then using the documents to build a larger case, is a standard litigation approach for advocacy organizations.
Whether that larger case could succeed is another question. The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District substantially strengthened the right of government employees to engage in personal religious expression in their official capacity. In that case, a public-school football coach who prayed on the field after games was found to be protected under the First Amendment.
A Cabinet secretary holding voluntary prayer services in a government building is on comparable or stronger legal ground. Any Establishment Clause challenge would face that precedent directly and would likely fail before the current court.
The services have continued through the U.S. military operation in Iran. At a recent Pentagon service, Hegseth read a prayer delivered by a military chaplain to troops who had captured former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”
He told attendees that the monthly gathering was all the more fitting given what tens of thousands of Americans were doing at that moment.
The most probable outcome of the current litigation is that a court will order the agencies to produce the requested records, as courts routinely compel FOIA compliance regardless of the subject matter involved. AU will then assess whether those records support a constitutional challenge.
Any future challenge would have to rest on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion, a significantly narrower legal standard than the phrase implies, and one the current Supreme Court has interpreted with increasing deference to religious expression.
Given the Supreme Court’s direction on religious liberty, the prayers will almost certainly continue.
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