President Donald Trump's administration suffered another legal blow Thursday evening, when a judge ruled the government's central human resources office unlawfully ordered other agencies to fire thousands of probationary employees, Politico reported.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup's order against Trump's Office of Personnel Management was a "setback" for the administration's effort to sharply reduce the workforce, Politico said.
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But the order also didn't seem to help workers who already lost their jobs, the report added, as Alsup said he didn't have the power to instruct agencies to reinstate the ousted workers or even cease planned terminations.
Instead, the judge ordered the agency to take back directives it sent mandating any mass purge. Additionally, the personnel agency must tell several agencies it can't order firings across the federal government.
“OPM does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency,” the judge said, according to the report.