Judge rules Trump administration must rescind 'illegal' order to fire probationary federal workers

A federal judge in California ruled against the Trump administration and ordered it to rescind an order calling for the firing of probationary federal workers.

The Office of Personnel Management had issued a memo on Jan. 20 instructing agencies to “promptly determine" whether the probationary workers should be retained. Later, an internal email from the OPM ordered agencies to fire the rest of the probationers.

'Doesn’t that sound like to you that somebody ordered it to happen, as opposed to, oh we just got guidance?'

On Thursday, Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California said the memo was "illegal" and ordered it to be "rescinded" but did not reinstate employees who had already been dismissed.

“The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said in the ruling.

“It can hire its own employees, yes. Can fire them. But it cannot order or direct some other agency to do so," he added.

President Donald Trump promised to decrease the size of government in his second term but many of his actions have been challenged in the courtroom. Estimates put the number of probationary workers at about 200,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland defended the actions of the government by saying that the OPM had merely made a "request" of the agencies and not an "order," but Alsup did not accept the argument.

“Something aberrational happens, not just in one agency, but all across the government, in many agencies on the same day, the same thing," said Alsup to Helland. "Doesn’t that sound like to you that somebody ordered it to happen, as opposed to, oh we just got guidance?"

Alsup was nominated to the court by former President Bill Clinton in 1999.

He is also the judge that ruled against the first Trump administration and ordered it to reinstate DACA amnesty to illegal aliens in 2018.

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