Second judge orders thousands of probationary employees fired by Trump to be reinstated
U.S. District Judge James Bredar's order applies to 12 departments and several agencies that fired probationary workers during the Trump administration.
A federal judge Thursday night ordered that thousands of federal workers fired by the Trump administration be temporarily reinstated.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order against dozens of agencies, departments and their leaderships across the federal government that had terminated workers as part of reduction-in-workforce efforts.
“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice. It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for 'performance' or other individualized reasons," Bredar wrote in his ruling.
"On the record before the Court, this isn’t true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively,” he added.
Hours earlier, a federal judge in California directed that the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Treasury offer reinstatement to the thousands of probationary employees the Trump administration terminated last month. The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal in that case.
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