Is this a legitimate phrase? It sounds unnatural to me for some reason.

Yes, this is a legitimate phrase. We (US) use it to mean several related things happened all at the same time, like: I slipped on the ice and hit the ground, breaking my hip, wrist, ankle, and straining my neck and back in one fell swoop.

“One fell swoop” is a set phrase and means quickly and in one action. The US government cannot just fire people for no cause. Nor can they lie about how and when people are fired. The fired workers are entitled to certain processes and payouts. In the current situation, DOGE appears to be breaking the contract rules and laws and quite possibly the constitution by firing people fast and without due process. USAID was created by an act of congress. Why does DOGE, or even the president, get to override that act of congress? Calling it fraud might be slightly exaggerating, but not by much. If I don’t follow the law and I don’t follow the contract rules and I fire you faster than I should have or with less payout than you are entitled to, then I broke the law and ended up with money that you are entitled to. Looks pretty close to fraud…

Yes, this is a common idiom. "Fell" in this sense is an adjective meaning "cruel, sinister, dire"; it is nowadays also well known in popular culture for its use in the description "[fell beasts](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/middle-earth-film-saga/images/1/1a/Fellbeast.png/revision/latest?cb=20161104005132)" used in *The Lord of the Rings*. Generally it is otherwise a fairly literary or poetic word. A "swoop" is the motion of a bird diving down, grabbing something (or trying to, or trying to scare someone), and flying back up; it can also mean any kind of sweeping swinging down and up motion—for example, this symbol could be called a swoop: ‿ (especially if it were longer—this font doesn't display it well). [Here is a video of one fell swoop. (It's worth watching.)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQNh9Adg3L0) I do not know the details of the "fraud" case, so I can only guess, but maybe there is a conclusion on the part of the plaintiff that promises made by USAID will not now be kept due to understaffing, and that that amounts to fraud.

Yes, it basically means it happened very quickly/it all happened at once . It’s a phrase often used by writer. In the context it’s basically saying that right after the laws were added employment fraud happened very quickly.

Just like the other poster said, it is an idiom. As it turns out, the word "fell" is also an adjective, although it sounds fairly archaic. *We were assailed by a fell host.*

"in one fell swoop" is a set phrase, though I would stop short of calling it an idiom. It means "all at once" or "done in one motion". The fraud referenced is basically this -- government workers can be fired "for cause" (for instance, theft, harrasment, documentable incompetence) but the process usually requires the cause to be listed and, in many instances, requires advanced notice unless the person is a danger to others or to property. For higher-level positions, a firing also requires notification to Congress. For someone like Elon Musk to simply tell hundreds of workers "you're fired" without investigation, complaints against the worker, advance notice, etc. is illegal and the workers are taking him to court. To make things worse, Elon Musk is, basically, a contract advisory position to Trump. No agency reports to Musk and Musk has no authority to make any decisions, much less firing or hiring. He is doing firings (among other things), but mostly by pressuring the department heads who were themselves installed by Trump in just the last week or two. It is normal for a new president to replace most department heads, but the average worker is a career worker and all the department head does is re-organize priorities that the president wants done and act as a liason to Congress. For instance, if a massive tornado outbreak happens the president may call in the head of weather service and say "I am issuing an executive order to prioritize tornado and thunderstorm research, sit down with your office heads and work out where we can build a research facility and how many meteorologists you will need in order to \[list of questions about tornadoes that the president wants to emphasize\]." A year or two later the tornado office is up and running and in sync with universities that have major meteorology departments. And the president calls the head in again and says "Ok, now that tornadoes are up and running, let's think about major precipitation events like blizzards and flooding rains, what equipment and what people do you need? Let's re-allocate federal jobs from routine monitoring to local agencies, just make sure they all have access to the full suite of radars and stuff; and move the federal people to researching storms that cause unexpected flooding so we can better predict those 2 - 5 days in advance". What Musk is doing instead of managing re-allocation of resources to research or forecast priorities is to install the new weather service head and then say "get rid of half the people, weather forecasting can't be that difficult, just get me a list of all employees and I'll gvie it back to you with half of them crossed out, and you fire them -- or I'll fire you". Musk has no authority to do this, but he pressures the agency heads into doing it improperly anyway. And that is landing Musk in court for what this article is calling "fraudulent" firings.

To add to my other, here is a video from an actual real lawyer who goes over some of the many (many) issues that DOGE has resulted in, and he especially talks about hiring/firing procedures related to career government jobs such as weather forecasters, disease researcher, or IRS tax specialists. You may want to turn on the 'closed captions' (the 'cc' button near the progress bar) as he does talk quickly and uses some vocabulary that may not be friendly to a language learner. Feel free to pause/play as much as you need to, and to ask about any obscure uses of words or phrases you do know. [https://youtu.be/ihvSwJT0rLU?si=LAhO6yVHBwmTF-Qm](https://youtu.be/ihvSwJT0rLU?si=LAhO6yVHBwmTF-Qm) This is not directly related to learning English, but it will help you understand some of the legal nuances in the article you are asking about. There are multiple lawsuits being brought by various departments and workers unions. I won't give you all of them, there are a crazy number, but here is one: [Complaint – #1 in NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION v. TRUMP (D.D.C., 1:25-cv-00170) – CourtListener.com](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69560537/1/national-treasury-employees-union-v-trump/) This is the principle quote from the lawsuit, from the introduction: >...most federal employees have due process rights if their agency employer wants to remove them from employment. Because the Policy/Career Executive Order attempts to divest federal employees of these due process rights, it is contrary to congressional intent. It is also directly contrary to Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulations. As of right now there are 94 lawsuits against Trump and/or Musk on various topics, many of them related to firings such as the one I linked above. Every presidency has lawsuits against it, but 94 in three weeks is probably a record. Whatever one's view on Trump, "fraud" complaints are not limited to the article you are reading. Lawsuits are being collected here: [Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions](https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/)

yes

“All my pretty ones, Did you say all? O hell-kite, all? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3.

"in one fell swoop" was coined by Shakespeare in Macbeth. It means - an action taken in a swift/fast and malicious manner, without hesitation.

A thing to remeber is that there is an idea in linguistics called "fossilization", where a language will spawn a phrase at X time, following the rules and vocabulary of X time and that phrase is compelling enough that it sticks around, unchanged, as the language evolves. So you are right "one fell swoop" does not work in modern english. Fell especially to mean cruel and brutal is only used when the writer wants to make their writing sound older, and swoop to mean a swift action is odd, but the phrase has stuck around as one solid block so it's perfectly fine to use in that way.

Native English speaker here learning that "one fell swoop" isn't referring to taking done a tree in one swing of an axe 😅 I must've came up with that myself as a kid, reading it for the first time, and never thought to question it.

“He shut down the businesses in one fell swoop.” [Through a plan to simultaneously shut down multiple businesses.] “He shut down the business in one fell swoop.” [Through a plan to end all contracts, fire all employees, and cancel all building leases at the same time.] “He destroyed the business in one fell swoop.” [Through a single action like taking on a risky investment that resulted in the entire business going under, so no part of the business was insulated from the bad decision.] “They gained entry to the compound in one fell swoop.” [Through a complex plan where they killed all the guards and knocked down the entry gate at the same time.] “They took out spies around the world in one fell swoop.” [Through a complicated plan that targeted people all over the world at the same time, like blowing up everyone’s cell phones.] “They eliminated the science department in one fell swoop.” [Option 1) By taking away all funding for the department, so a single action effectively eliminated the department; or Option 2) By multiple simultaneous actions like firing all professors and ending all science degrees.] “They took down the monarchy in one fell swoop.” [By firing a catapult at the tower where all members of the monarchy were standing, thus killing them all.] “They took down the monarchy in one fell swoop.” [By passing a law that eliminated the monarchy.] “They took down the monarchy in one fell swoop.” [By having assassins kill every member of the monarchy at the same time, even though they were in different places all over the country.] Basically, the saying is usually used for one big action that affects something complex, or the saying is used for a complex plan where multiple things happen simultaneously. And *typically* something bad/negative is happening to someone/something. But you could use it for something positive, like “In one fell swoop, they protected gay men who want to adopt.” [Through signing a federal law to prevent discrimination in adoption practices.] “In one fell swoop, they ensured children would not be hungry in school.” [Through a new law for free school lunches at all public schools in the country.]

"One fell swoop" is originally from Shakespeare. A character in Macbeth learns that his wife and children have been murdered, and compares it to a bird of prey taking them all in one "fell" (deadly, fierce, horrible) "swoop" (diving motion).

Yeah, it’s a common English idiom

It's an old timey phrase. I know "fell" is a word, but I've only heard it in old timey places, or in this phrase. I don't know what it actually means.

1. It's from "Macbeth", Shakespeare. A bird of prey (like an eagle), swooping down on chickens, grabbing all of the chicks at once. Instead of taking each chick individually, it takes them all at once. In a single dive. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/one_fell_swoop https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/11h33bb/in_one_fell_swoop/ 2. Fraud doesn't have to be about money. Cheating at a school test is fraud. Lying about your age to buy alcohol is fraud. A photoshopped picture of bigfoot or aliens can be fraud.

"one fell swoop" is a quotation from Shakespeare, like a lot of cool metaphors. The word "fell" as an adjective means "dramatically dire". "Swoop" is reference to the attack run of a predatory bird. Macduff used the expression to describe the sudden killing of his household. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? As for fraud, the word can apply to any kind of unlawful deception for gain, and the gain need not be monetary in nature. For example election fraud to get one's desired candidate elected. In this case the plaintiffs are arguing that OPM is trying unlawfully seize the authority to fire people from the departments who actually employ those people. Rather than monetary gain, an increase in bureaucratic power is at stake, according to them.

“One fell swoop” is definitely a legitimate phrase. It’s used to mean “all at once” or “in a single motion” or “in one move.” “Fraud” generally involves money, but not always. You can commit fraud by lying, even if you don’t end up with a dime from it, you just have to intend to profit. (This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. Do not treat this as legal advice. If you treat this as legal advice, it’s not my fault.) However, in this case it just seems like an incorrect usage of it, which is odd from an attorney.

Shakespeare- so totally natural and well known to older people, born before the internet who used to read books, in British English.