San Francisco
CNN
–
A federal judge ordered half a dozen federal agencies last month to “quickly” recover probation employees who were fired as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to rapidly shrink the federal workforce.
An interim injunction issued from the bench Thursday by US District Judge William Alsp requires employees to be rehired in departments of Veteran Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. The judge said the order could be extended later to cover other federal agencies.
Alsup, former President Bill Clinton appointee, said he is making the ruling because he believes the Human Resources Administration has illegally directed the agency to fire employees who have tried to get jobs less than a year earlier this year.
“The court has found that the Personnel Management Administration has directed all agencies to terminate probation employees, except mission-critical employees,” he said.
The judge said the order would be effective soon: “This is an order, and it matters.”
The Justice Department on Thursday indicated that it would appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The verdict came in cases in which unions and others challenged the role of OPM in firing, affecting thousands of employees and sending shockwaves through various federal agencies.
Alsup was extremely critical of the administration’s justification to fire employees. OPM provided agents with template termination letters cited as a reason for the employee’s “performance” to be let go. However, the judge said the rationale was the government’s attempt to end federal laws to establish specific rules to reduce federal workers.
“The reason why OPM wanted to put this on performance basis was, at least in part, a gimmick in my judgment, to avoid reducing power,” the judge said. “Because the law always allows you to fire someone for performance.”
“It’s a sad day when our government fires good employees and say it’s based on performance when they know that’s good,” he added. “It shouldn’t have been done in our country. It was false to try and avoid the statutory requirements.”
Typically, federal probation employees hold their own positions for a year, but some jobs have a two-year probationary period. Employees may not be used to federal workers, but they can also be promoted recently or moved to another agency.
The Allsup ruling is one of the most important cases when testing the administration’s power to quickly reduce the number of federal employees. This is an important priority that has been central to Elon Musk-led government efficiency.
The White House called this rule “absurd and unconstitutional.”
“A single judge is writingly trying to seize the power of employment and shooting. The president has the power to exercise power across the administrative division. A singular district court judge cannot abuse the power across the judiciary to block the president’s agenda,” White House press chief Karoline Leavitt said in a statement posted to X by another White House aide.
“If a U.S. District Court judge wants enforcement, they can try and work for the president himself,” Leavitt said.
The second federal judge ruled that probation employees, who were heavily laid off by the Trump administration, must temporarily recover in a similar case brought to Maryland by the Democratic state attorney general, later Thursday. The judge’s temporary restraining order will last for two weeks and will apply to 18 agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States International Development Agency.
The interim injunction was able to testify about the Trump administration’s decision to fire probation employees’ scores as ALSUP has not made personnel available to deputies for the Department of Personnel Management after being dropped off at the Justice Department.
He ordered the acting OPM director, Charles Ezell, to testify at the acting hearing. There, you may be faced with harsh questions from lawyers representing the trade union who are challenging his agency’s role in firing.
However, the Justice Department refused to make him available and instead retracted the declaration filed last month.
“You’re afraid to do so because you know that cross-examination reveals the truth,” Alsup told Doj lawyer Kelsey Helland. “I tend to doubt you’re telling me the truth.”
Alsup told DOJ attorneys on Thursday:
“You’re not helping me to get to the truth. You’ll give me a press release – a fake document,” the judge said, referring to the documents filed by the DOJ to the court, indicating how the agency has decided to close.
A declaration from Ezell said the OPM did not “instruct” other agencies to terminate probation employees.
Helland pushed the judge’s argument back, claiming that during the hearing the engineer chief had tried to cull the workforce himself, not in the direction of the OPM.
“We respectfully opposed to the introduction of false evidence,” he said at one point.
The Trump administration targets probational workers because it has fewer job protections and is easier to dismiss. They generally cannot appeal their dismissal to the Merit System Protection Committee, but they can be done if the action is due to “partisan political reasons” or “the status of marriage.” They are also protected from prohibited personnel practices.
Part of Thursday’s hearing was about whether an employee in question in the case had the option to sue MSPB to fire fire. However, the judge said he wanted the parties to submit a more written legal discussion on the matter before he could decide how to consider it in his award.
One former probation employee who was fired from the IRS, an agency within the Treasury Department last month, told CNN that he and his colleagues are excited about the verdict.
“Everyone in the group chat is congratulating me,” the former IRS employee said, referring to the text chat where his former colleagues have comforted each other in recent weeks.
CNN’s Tami Luhby, Tierney Sneed, Samantha Waldenberg and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
Fix: This story has been updated to revise the title of acting OPM director Charles Ezel.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
