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JUST IN: Judge William Alsup declines to stay his order requiring rehiring of probationary employees at 6 federal departments, calls OPM acting chief failure to testify 'violation of this court's order.'

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...

A federal district judge has failed to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a fired worker who obtained a job at a religious school by promising to adhere to its biblical standards, even as he was already started on a campaign to embrace transgenderism. The judge, Norman Moon, allowed the lawsuit by Jonathan Zinski against Liberty University to move forward by claiming that the school cannot "erect a shield against antidiscrimination laws by asserting that mere acceptance of a member from a particular group would impair its image." Further, he said having the Christian school employ Zinski does not significantly burden...

Topline A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to federal civilian employees from taking effect Thursday, hours before the deadline the administration set for more than 2 million employees to decide whether to take resignation packages with pay through September. Timeline Feb. 6: A federal judge in Massachusetts pushed back the deadline for employees to accept the offer, initially set for 11:59 p.m. Thursday, until at least Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions that argued the administration could not guarantee pay beyond March 14 expiration date for the existing budget. Feb. 5:...

A federal judge paused Thursday’s deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer while more proceedings on the program’s legality play out. The government will send a notice to the employees informing them that Thursday’s deadline is on hold. Before the judge’s ruling, eligible federal workers had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September. The pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several...

With just hours remaining for federal workers to decide whether to take the Trump administration's offer to resign from their jobs now while keeping their pay and benefits through Sept. 30, a federal judge in Massachusetts will weigh a request from labor unions to issue a temporary restraining order and stay today's deadline. U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, will preside over a virtual hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. ET. The lawsuit, filed by the legal group Democracy Forward on behalf of unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants, alleges that the Trump administration's resignation offer...

The Honorable Peter J. Messitte passed away on Saturday, January 11, 2025, after a short illness. Judge Messitte was commissioned as a U.S. District Judge on October 20, 1993. He served in the Court’s Southern Division at the Greenbelt Courthouse and was on active status until September 1, 2008. Judge Messitte continued service on senior status until his death. Judge Messitte was renowned for his judicial outreach throughout the world, and especially in Latin America. In June 2017, he received the Order of the Southern Cross for his contributions to the Brazilian Judiciary. His colleagues and Court staff deeply mourn...

A federal appeals court decided this week to allow Davina Ricketts, a former North Carolina high school student, to continue pursuing her racial discrimination lawsuit against the Wake County Public School System, its board of education, and numerous school officials. Ricketts alleges that school and district officials did not intervene and were “deliberately indifferent” to the racial harassment and cyberbullying she endured from other students during and after a student council election in 2016.... When election day came, Ricketts discovered her name and the names of the other three Black candidates were not on the junior class ballot. The omission...

A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has the authority to deport illegal immigrants even if local leaders try to impede the process. The case arose after King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order in 2019 that instructed county officials to prohibit “fixed base operators” (FBO) on a county airfield from servicing flights chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants who are lawfully removable. FBO’s “lease space from the airport and provide flights with essential services, such as fueling and landing stairs,” according to the ruling.The...

The Ninth Circuit has long been the left-most federal appellate court in the United States. However, the day after Thanksgiving, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision that must have made President-elect Donald Trump very happy: It concluded that the Supremacy Clause means what it says, namely, that when it comes to the border, local political bodies cannot use regulations governing private parties to override the federal government’s supremacy on immigration matters. United States v. King County revolved around Boeing Field, an airport in King County, Washington (i.e., the Seattle area). In 1941, King County conveyed the field to the U.S....

The federal government has the authority to deport foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally over the objection of local authorities, a panel of three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled. The 29-page ruling was written by Judge Daniel Bress, with judges Michael Hawkins and Richard Clinton concurring. At issue is an April 2019 executive order issued by King County Executive Dow Constantine, which directed county officials to prohibit fixed base operators on a county airfield near Seattle from servicing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights used to deport illegal foreign nationals. Constantine’s order prohibited King...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vented his displeasure Monday after two Democratic-appointed federal judges reversed their decisions to retire in what appear to be efforts to stop President-elect Trump from nominating their successors. McConnell called the unusual decisions to forgo retirement following Trump’s sweeping victory last month a “partisan” gambit that would undermine the integrity of federal courts. “They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them and now that he won’t, they’re changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It’s a brazen admission. And the incoming administration would...

A federal judge has ordered New York City to draft plans to hand over management of its Rikers Island jail complex to a third-party receiver after holding the city's Department of Corrections (DOC) in civil contempt for failing to meet more than a dozen requirements to improve conditions in its violence-wracked jails. In an opinion and order issued Tuesday, Chief U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Laura Taylor Swain wrote that she was "inclined to impose a receivership" after finding that violence and death inside Rikers has not improved since New York City agreed to a...

A federal judge denied a request to dismiss a gun charge against an illegal immigrant in Ohio who had been in the US for more than 15 years, rejecting the man’s argument that he has a right to bear arms. Carlos Serrano-Restrepo was charged earlier this year and was subsequently indicted for possession of a firearm by an alien unlawfully in the US, according to WSYX. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating and watching Serrano-Restrepo after he purchased at least 22 firearms, and claimed to be a US citizen on the firearms forms. Agents conducted a...

A federal judge appointed by Barack Obama ruled that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes must release records pertaining to over 1.2 million “inactive” voters on Arizona’s voter rolls. The decision comes amid concerns that Arizona’s voter rolls may contain numerous inactive or ineligible registrations, that would impact the accuracy of the state’s voter database. Judge Logan served 26 years in the Marine Corps and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal while stationed in Iraq. Barack Obama nominated Judge Logan to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Arizona in 2013. On Saturday, Judge Steven...

A federal judge has turned away allegations that billionaire Elon Musk violated the law when he started giving $1 million away to registered voters. California resident Aaron Greenspan in a lawsuit filed over the summer accused Musk of violating state laws and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. In a recent emergency motion, Greenspan, who founded the company PlainSite, said Musk’s newly announced million-dollar giveaways to voters in swing states violated federal law that prohibits paying or offering to pay people to either register to vote or vote.

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to turn over records related to former President Donald Trump's controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery – meaning the public could soon see the incident report concerning an alleged altercation between Trump campaign officials and a cemetery employee. American Oversight, a watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against DOD to obtain the incident report of the alleged Aug. 26 incident involving a member of Trump's campaign and the cemetery staff member. ABC News has previously reported that there was a physical and verbal altercation between a Trump campaign official...