Two judges ordered federal agencies on Thursday to reinstate tens of thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired across 19 agencies as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.
One of the judges, James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, also temporarily restrained the government from carrying out any planned “reductions in force” across the 18 agencies affected by his order. That includes a cut the Education Department announced this week that would leave it with about half the staff it had when Mr. Trump took office.
Together, the rulings formed a wide, if perhaps temporary, reprieve for employees across much of the government, including major agencies like the Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and Interior Departments. And they amounted to the most significant judicial pushback yet against the efforts by Mr. Trump and Elon Musk to slash the federal work force.
Judge Bredar’s order late Thursday followed a similar one earlier in the day from Judge William H. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Alsup found that the Trump administration’s firing of probationary workers had essentially been done unlawfully by fiat from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm. Only agencies themselves have broad hiring and firing powers, he said.
He directed the Treasury and the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior Departments to comply with his order and offer to reinstate any probationary employees who had improperly been terminated. But he added that he was open to expanding his decision later to apply to other agencies where the extent of harms had not been as fully documented.
Judge Bredar’s ruling, in a lawsuit filed a week ago by 19 state attorneys general, also applied to all of those agencies except the Defense Department, along with 13 others. Although he ordered that probationary workers be reinstated, he said that could include paid administrative leave.
Neither order was a final decision in the case. Judge Alsup’s ruling was a preliminary injunction, intended to remain in effect while the case is tried and a final decision is rendered. Judge Bredar’s ruling is even more short-lived, just a two-week measure aimed at pausing any more drastic cuts to those agencies while that lawsuit plays out.
Judge Bredar said in his lengthy ruling that the government’s contention that the firings of the probationary employees had been for cause, and not a mass layoff, “borders on the frivolous.”
Judge Alsup, in a hearing earlier Thursday, concluded much the same and made it clear that he thought the manner in which the Trump administration had fired the probationary workers was a “sham.”
In that case, federal employee unions challenged the legality of how those agencies had fired probationary workers. The unions, arguing that those workers had been swept up in a larger effort by Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, who leads the initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency, to arbitrarily ravage the federal government and demoralize its employees, were seeking a preliminary injunction.
Judge Alsup said he was convinced that federal agencies had followed a directive from senior officials in the Office of Personnel Management to use a loophole allowing them to fire probationary workers by citing poor performance, regardless of their actual conduct on the job. He concluded that the government’s actions were a “gimmick” intended to expeditiously carry out mass firings.
“It is 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,” he said.
“It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements,” he added.
He also extended a restraining order he issued last month blocking the Office of Personnel Management from orchestrating further mass firings. But before handing down his ruling on Thursday, Judge Alsup was careful to make sure the lawyers representing the unions understood its limits.
Agencies planning to conduct large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” can still proceed in accordance with the laws that govern such processes, he said — meaning that the reprieve for workers may only be temporary. The Office of Personnel Management had set a deadline of Thursday for agencies to submit reduction in force plans.
“If it’s done right, there can be a reduction in force within an agency, that has to be true,” Judge Alsup said.
Hours later, though, Judge Bredar issued his temporary restraining order blocking further layoffs at all the agencies in that case except the Defense Department.
Meanwhile, the unions filed a motion seeking to extend Judge Alsup’s order to cover 16 federal agencies. The government also appealed his decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
A substantial portion of the hearing before Judge Alsup on Thursday also focused on the ways the government had moved to circumvent the courts and sideline workers by any means available.
In other cases focused on the administration’s suspension of federal contracts and grants, judges have similarly fretted that agencies have forged ahead to terminate those programs faster than courts could order the funding unfrozen.
Danielle Leonard, a lawyer representing the unions, said that even after an independent agency that protects government workers in employment disputes ordered the Agriculture Department to reinstate 6,000 probationary workers this month, the agency had kept many on paid leave, restoring their salaries but not their jobs.
“We do not believe that they are going to return any of these employees to actual service,” she said.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Agriculture Department said it was working on a “phased plan for return to duty” for those workers.
Judge Alsup had originally planned to have Trump administration officials appear to testify on Thursday about the process through which the layoffs were planned. But the government made it clear on Wednesday that Charles Ezell, the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management, would not appear.
Mr. Ezell became a central character in the lawsuit because of memos and meetings he held with agency heads in February that included detailed guidance on how to conduct the mass layoffs of probationary workers. Lawyers representing the federal workers’ unions that sued called Mr. Ezell’s guidance “insidious” and clearly devised to enlist Mr. Trump’s appointees into a broader effort to decimate the federal work force.
Judge Alsup said he had hoped testimony from the officials involved in the firings would provide clarity about the conception and execution of those plans. He also excoriated a lawyer from the Justice Department for failing to produce Mr. Ezell and other potential witnesses.
As part of his ruling on Thursday, Judge Alsup specified that the government would have to allow Noah Peters, a lawyer working with Mr. Musk’s team who was detailed to the personnel office, to sit for a deposition in Washington about the impetus behind the firings.
“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined,” he said. “You’re afraid to do so, because you know cross-examination would reveal the truth.”
Kelsey Helland, the lawyer present from the Justice Department, said the government had submitted ample evidence that agencies were acting on their own and were never beholden to orders from Mr. Ezell.
Mr. Helland added that it was not unusual for the Trump administration to try to shield its top officials from appearing in court.
“Every presidential administration in modern history has jealously guarded their agency heads against being forced to give testimony,” he said.
But Judge Alsup grew increasingly riled by those explanations, saying he felt “misled by the U.S. government” about the way it had proceeded.
“It upsets me — I want you to know that,” he said, adding, “You’re not helping me get at the truth.”