Free Republic

“The words that I give you today should not be taken as some kind of wild and crazy judge in San Francisco has said that the administration cannot engage in a reduction in force. I’m not saying that at all,” Alsup noted as he issued his ruling. “Of course, if he does, it has to comply with the statutory requirements: the Reduction In Force act, the Civil Service Act, the Constitution, maybe other statutes,” the judge continued. “But it can be done.”

A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to reinstate 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 Departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made...

March 13 (Reuters) - A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six U.S. agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who were fired as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce. The ruling made by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco applies to the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

The Trump administration could be sanctioned by a federal judge later this week after lawyers with the Department of Justice advised a federal judge Tuesday evening that they will not make a top administration official available for sworn testimony. U.S. District Judge Charles Alsup had sought to have the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Charles Ezell, testify on Thursday about the mass firing of probationary employees. But the DOJ said Tuesday that they would not make Ezell available for testimony. By making Ezell unavailable, DOJ attorneys also withdrew his sworn affidavit, a move that Judge Charles...

A federal district judge in Indiana has once again ordered the state Department of Correction (IDOC) to arrange a sex reassignment surgery for a transgender inmate convicted of reckless homicide of a baby, marking the latest development in the ongoing legal saga challenging an Indiana law banning the procedure. The case, now in its second year, involves inmate Autumn Cordellioné's request for sex reassignment surgery. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) first filed the lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections in 2023 on behalf of Cordellioné, challenging an Indiana law that prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer...