Examiner #3 - Legal Challenges

Dear Friends,

95 Legal Challenges to Trumps Administration Actions

It is difficult and confusing keeping track of the many cases before our courts due to President Trumps Executive Orders. However, we are determined to keep working to keep you informed and confident that the information you have read is truthful and accurate.

“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Judge Alsup said.

The federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of

probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to

drastically shrink the federal government.

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.

Judge Alsup, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an “unlawful” decision to terminate them.

The order is one of the most far-reaching rejections of the Trump administration’s effort to slash the bureaucracy and is almost certain to be appealed.

Judge Alsup also lashed out at the Justice Department over its handling of the case, saying he believes that Trump administration lawyers were hiding the facts about who directed the mass firings. “You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You are afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth,” the judge said to a DOJ attorney during a hearing Thursday. “I tend to doubt that you are telling me the truth. ... I am tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth.”

Further, Judge Alsup said the administration attempted to circumvent federal laws on reducing the workforce by attributing the firings to “performance” when that was not in fact the case. The judge called the move “a gimmick.”

“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was basedon performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said.

Lawyers for the Trump government maintain the mass firings were lawful because individual

agencies reviewed and determined whether employees on probation were fit for continued

employment.

This case is among multiple lawsuits challenging the mass firings.

• A judge in Maryland also appeared skeptical of the Trump administration in a lawsuit

brought by nearly two dozen states.

• Please note, a judge in the nation’s capital, on the other hand, ruled against unions last

month, finding the fired workers needed to work through a process set out in

employment law.

That’s all for now, we will keep you informed.

Respectfully,

Engage Women

Resources:

Institute for Policy Integrity

New York Times

Brookings