Thousands Of Fired Federal Workers Must Be Rehired Immediately, Judge Rules

A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a “sham” strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce.

Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an “unlawful” decision to terminate them.

The order is one of the most far-reaching rejections of the Trump administration’s effort to slash the bureaucracy and is almost certain to be appealed.

Alsup also lashed out at the Justice Department over its handling of the case, saying he believes that Trump administration lawyers were hiding the facts about who directed the mass firings.

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth,” the judge said to a DOJ attorney during a hearing Thursday. “I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth. … I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth.”

Alsup also said the administration attempted to circumvent federal laws on reducing the workforce by attributing the firings to “performance” when that was not in fact the case. The judge called the move “a gimmick.”

“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said.