WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to reinstate tens of thousands of fired federal employees across six agencies, saying their terminations were “unlawful.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate all probationary employees it fired from the departments of Defense, Treasury, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Veterans Affairs.
Alsup called the mass firings a “sham” effort by the Office of Personnel Management ― the human resources agency of the federal government ― to skirt laws in order to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce.
The judge said he might also extend his order to cover more fired probationary employees from other federal agencies at another time. Probationary employees are people who generally have been on the job for a year or less.
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“The court finds that Office of Personnel Management did direct all agencies to terminate probationary employees with the exception of mission critical employees,” Alsup said, per CNN, rejecting claims by the Justice Department that OPM was simply offering “guidance” to agencies to carry out firings.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.