President Donald Trump said the U.S. Supreme Court may need to decide if a Clinton-appointed judge can require the administration to reinstate thousands of probationary workers fired as the administration moves to shrink the federal workforce.
“It’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on a flight back to Washington Sunday night. “That’s a very dangerous thing for our country. And I would suspect that we’re going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup, issued the order last week during a federal court hearing in San Francisco on a lawsuit brought by labor unions and other organizations challenging the mass firings ordered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
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“And that’s a very dangerous decision for our country, because these are people in many cases, they don’t show up for work. Nobody even knows if they exist. And a judge wants us to pay them, even if they don’t know they exist and if they exist,” Trump said. “And I don’t think that’s going to be happening. But we’ll have to say you have to speak to the lawyers about that.”
Shortly after Alsup’s order, a second judge – appointed by former President Barack Obama – also issued a ruling ordering the Trump administration to rehire the fired workers. In Baltimore, U.S. District Judge James Bredar, ruled the firings should cease for two weeks while the federal workforce returns to its previous regulations, arguing the Trump administration ignored procedures for mass layoffs.
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Trump, calling the order “absolutely ridiculous,” ordered the mass layoffs across six government agencies: the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. The Trump administration has already filed an appeal to the order, arguing that states have no standing to influence the federal government’s relationship with its employees. Trump’s attorneys contend the layoffs were performance-related, not subject to the regulations governing large-scale reductions.
Probationary workers – employees who are still within their initial trial period of employment – have been the target of the layoffs since they’re typically new to the job and lack certain civil protection benefits offered to government employees. Several lawsuits have already been filed over the mass firings.
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The Trump administration’s lawyers find themselves busy as more than 100 lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s orders since he took office in January. Trump has already filed an emergency petition last week in the high court asking justices to allow parts of his executive order restricting birthright citizenship to take effect while other legal battles in the states play out.
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