Sarah K. Burris
February 17, 2025
RAW STORY
Judge Tanya Chutkan and President Donald Trump (Photos: Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit and White House/Flickr)
Judge Tanya Chutkan held a rare emergency hearing on Monday's Presidents' Day holiday to hear the case for a temporary restraining order halting the activity of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Chutkan noted that several other cases currently in the courts attempt to pause cuts being ushered in by DOGE, which isn't a congressionally established or funded department. She asked why the broader case before her, which seeks to shut down all of DOGE's cuts, is different.
The legal team suing for the order pointed to reports over the dangers of Department of Energy employees who oversee the nuclear waste in Los Alamos, New Mexico as an example. They mentioned that thousands of government employees were let go on Friday
Chutkan asked whether the government's legal team could confirm — and they said they didn't know. It was a fact that legal analysts watching the case unfold were shocked by.
"I have not been able to look into that independently or confirm that," the government lawyer said, according to Just Security and MSNBC's Adam Klasfeld.
"The firing of thousands of federal employees is not a small or common thing. You haven’t been able to confirm that?" Klasfeld quoted Chutkan responding "incredulously."
Lawfare's Roger Parloff recorded Chutkan's concerns that DOGE's actions "have been unpredictable and scattershot." She commented that it's unclear if that is by design or a nature of the situation.
"That's why I'm asking: will there be terminations? Where? When?" Chutkan said, according to Parloff.
The government was forced to say they'd get back to her on that.
Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien pointed out that this might "sound damning," but that it might help the government's case in the end.
"This chaos may make it more difficult to demonstrate the immediate harm needed for the judge to issue a temporary restraining order — rather than just a generalized fear," he explained.
Chutkan said she would try to rule on the matter in 24 hours.
Park Service employee fired mid-air on her way home from a work trip
By Cthegoat - Glacier Point US Citizenship Ceremony 2011 Yosemite National Park, California USA, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37698586
By Cthegoat - Glacier Point US Citizenship Ceremony 2011 Yosemite National Park, California USA, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37698586
Park rangers presiding over US Citizenship Ceremony
February 16, 2025
ALTERNET
A 23-year-old park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, Helen Dhue, found out she'd been fired during a layover in Dallas on Friday, on her way home from a National Park Service business trip.
"The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department's current needs," read the email she received, according to the New York Times.
Dhue is one of 1,000 National Park Service employees affected by federal job cuts imposed by the Trump administration. Her firing comes at the same time a former Yosemite National Park official laments a "catastrophic" outcome of Trump's cuts, leading to reduced services and worse.
The executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Tim Whitehouse, argues the NPS firings make little sense. "It's not going to save the government any money," he said. "It's going to degrade our parks, demoralize people that work very hard for very little money, and make the government a hostile place to be."
During the first weeks of the Trump administration, significant efforts have been made to overhaul the federal workforce. One of the administration's first acts was to summarily fire Justice Department prosecutors who had helped investigate Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. These career DOJ officials, who had worked under presidents of both parties, were terminated, it's believed, due to their role in investigating the president's conduct.
The Trump administration has also sought to persuade federal employees into resigning, offering "buyout" packages of around eight months' pay if they voluntarily leave their positions. This move is seen by many as an unconstitutional attempt to purge the "deep state" of officials not aligned with Trump's political agenda.
The administration's actions have extended beyond the DOJ, with a reported plan to target Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices across the federal government. Internal documents from the Trump-aligned "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) outlined a multi-phase strategy to identify and terminate DEI-linked employees, even in statutorily mandated civil rights offices.
ALTERNET
A 23-year-old park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, Helen Dhue, found out she'd been fired during a layover in Dallas on Friday, on her way home from a National Park Service business trip.
"The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department's current needs," read the email she received, according to the New York Times.
Dhue is one of 1,000 National Park Service employees affected by federal job cuts imposed by the Trump administration. Her firing comes at the same time a former Yosemite National Park official laments a "catastrophic" outcome of Trump's cuts, leading to reduced services and worse.
The executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Tim Whitehouse, argues the NPS firings make little sense. "It's not going to save the government any money," he said. "It's going to degrade our parks, demoralize people that work very hard for very little money, and make the government a hostile place to be."
During the first weeks of the Trump administration, significant efforts have been made to overhaul the federal workforce. One of the administration's first acts was to summarily fire Justice Department prosecutors who had helped investigate Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. These career DOJ officials, who had worked under presidents of both parties, were terminated, it's believed, due to their role in investigating the president's conduct.
The Trump administration has also sought to persuade federal employees into resigning, offering "buyout" packages of around eight months' pay if they voluntarily leave their positions. This move is seen by many as an unconstitutional attempt to purge the "deep state" of officials not aligned with Trump's political agenda.
The administration's actions have extended beyond the DOJ, with a reported plan to target Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices across the federal government. Internal documents from the Trump-aligned "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) outlined a multi-phase strategy to identify and terminate DEI-linked employees, even in statutorily mandated civil rights offices.
'Disastrous': Trump’s 'haphazard' mass firings leave 'gaping holes in the government'
(Gage Skidmore)
Donald Trump in Phoenix on December 22, 2024
(Gage Skidmore)
Donald Trump in Phoenix on December 22, 2024
February 15, 2025
ALTERNET
Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House less than a month ago, thousands of federal government workers have been laid off.
Trump, with the help of ally Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fear their agency will suffer a similar fate, and Trump proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education altogether.
In an article published on February 15, six Politico reporters — Liz Crampton, Marcia Brown, Danny Nguyen, Ben Lefebvre, Catherine Morehouse and Eric Bazail-Eimil — detail the ways in which Americans are likely to be affected by these mass layoffs of federal workers.
READ MORE: 'Stop whining': GOPer smacked down after worrying Trump 'cuts will do more harm than good'
"Americans could soon start to feel the repercussions of the Trump Administration's decision to fire thousands of government workers — from public safety to health benefits and basic services that they have come to rely on," the journalists explain. "Trump's directive to slash thousands of jobs across agencies is leaving gaping holes in the government, with thousands of workers being laid off from the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs and multiple others."
The reporters continue, "At the U.S. Forest Service, where some 3400 workers are slated to be cut, wildfire prevention will be curtailed as the West grapples with a destructive fire season that has destroyed millions of acres in California. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn't spared: Almost half of the agency's 2800 probationary employees were cut, while about 400 employees appeared to have taken the 'buyout' offer, meaning the agency responsible for protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other health hazards will lose about a tenth of its workforce. That's on top of more than 2000 probationary employees fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC's parent agency."
According to the Politico journalists, a source "familiar with" activities at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said that as many as 200,000 civil service workers who were in the probationary period are likely to be laid off.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is being rocked by layoffs as well.
"Haphazard cuts at GSA could be disastrous for the millions of Americans who rely on the agency's services like Login.gov, the central login system for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," the reporters note. "The agency also streamlines much of the federal government's real estate, acquisition and other technical services, and cuts to these could have a domino effect across the government."
Read Politico's full article at this link.
Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House less than a month ago, thousands of federal government workers have been laid off.
Trump, with the help of ally Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fear their agency will suffer a similar fate, and Trump proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education altogether.
In an article published on February 15, six Politico reporters — Liz Crampton, Marcia Brown, Danny Nguyen, Ben Lefebvre, Catherine Morehouse and Eric Bazail-Eimil — detail the ways in which Americans are likely to be affected by these mass layoffs of federal workers.
READ MORE: 'Stop whining': GOPer smacked down after worrying Trump 'cuts will do more harm than good'
"Americans could soon start to feel the repercussions of the Trump Administration's decision to fire thousands of government workers — from public safety to health benefits and basic services that they have come to rely on," the journalists explain. "Trump's directive to slash thousands of jobs across agencies is leaving gaping holes in the government, with thousands of workers being laid off from the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs and multiple others."
The reporters continue, "At the U.S. Forest Service, where some 3400 workers are slated to be cut, wildfire prevention will be curtailed as the West grapples with a destructive fire season that has destroyed millions of acres in California. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn't spared: Almost half of the agency's 2800 probationary employees were cut, while about 400 employees appeared to have taken the 'buyout' offer, meaning the agency responsible for protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other health hazards will lose about a tenth of its workforce. That's on top of more than 2000 probationary employees fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC's parent agency."
According to the Politico journalists, a source "familiar with" activities at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said that as many as 200,000 civil service workers who were in the probationary period are likely to be laid off.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is being rocked by layoffs as well.
"Haphazard cuts at GSA could be disastrous for the millions of Americans who rely on the agency's services like Login.gov, the central login system for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," the reporters note. "The agency also streamlines much of the federal government's real estate, acquisition and other technical services, and cuts to these could have a domino effect across the government."
Read Politico's full article at this link.
'None of This Is About Saving Money': Fury Over Trump-Musk Purge of Federal Workers
The "mass firing spree," said one union leader, is "about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence."
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) protest against firings during a rally to defend federal workers in Washington, D.C. on February 11, 2025.
(Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Feb 14, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
The Trump administration intensified its large-scale purge of the federal government on Thursday by moving to fire potentially hundreds of thousands of probationary employees, an effort that one leading union condemned as a power grab aimed at forcing agencies to capitulate to the whims of a lawless president.
The new flurry of terminations impacted workers across at least seven federal agencies, from the Department of Veterans Affairs—which said it fired 1,000 employees—to the Forest Service, Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees—a union that represents more than 750,000 federal workers—said no one should fall for the Trump administration's claim that the mass firings are about federal employees' performance or enhancing government "efficiency."
"This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office," Kelley said in a statement Thursday. "These firings are not about poor performance—there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence."
Vowing to "fight these firings every step of the way," Kelley said terminated employees were "given no notice, no due process, and no opportunity to defend themselves in a blatant violation of the principles of fairness and merit that are supposed to govern federal employment."
"We will stand with every impacted employee, pursue every legal challenge available, and hold this administration accountable for its reckless actions," said Kelley. "Federal employees are not disposable, and we will not allow the government to treat them as such."
"None of this is about saving money, it is about Musk and Trump enriching themselves and their wealthy friends while making huge cuts to services Americans depend on."
The new purge targeting more recently hired government employees marks the latest salvo in the Trump administration's far-reaching assault on federal agencies, an effort spearheaded by unelected billionaire Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. President Donald Trump has given the advisory commission unprecedented authority over federal hiring, effectively installing Musk as the leader of a shadow government in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Postnoted that "the latest data shows there were more than 220,000 federal employees within their one-year probationary period as of last March."
"These workers typically have little protection from being fired without cause," the Post observed.
In addition to firing rank-and-file workers, Trump has removed independent inspectors general, top federal prosecutors, National Labor Relations Board officials, and the head of the Office of Government Ethics, among others.
The new administration's sweeping attacks on the federal workforce, which have drawn union-led legal challenges, have left career civil servants confused, demoralized, and fearful of the future—music to the ears of far-right officials like Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who has expressed his desire to leave government employees "traumatically affected."
An anonymous OPM employee wrote for Slate last week that agency workers "are just as frustrated, confused, and traumatized as the rest of America."
"When I started my job at OPM, I swore an oath to the Constitution, and to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, making it especially awful that the threat to our government is coming from inside my own office building," the worker wrote. "The villains here aren't the civil servants working to serve the American people."
A purge of the federal workforce and wholesale dismantling of government departments were central goals of the far-right Project 2025 agenda authored by Vought and others in Trump's orbit. The playbook called on the new administration to disempower career civil servants and "fill its ranks with political appointees."
In addition to leading OMB, Vought is serving as acting director of the CFPB, an agency hit particularly hard by Thursday's purge. Reuters reported that "a new category of employees" at the consumer agency "received termination notices on Thursday... in a sign that the Trump administration was going beyond probationary employees as it looks to fire federal staff."
"Notices to dozens of so-called 'term employees,' full-time workers on contracts with end dates, began arriving Thursday evening, letting them know they were being terminated the same day," Reuters reported. "Some staff discovered they had lost access to the agency's IT systems before receiving their termination letters."
The sloppy and chaotic nature of the purge underscored what critics say is a reckless evisceration of government in service of a far-right ideological project.
The Post reported that the Small Business Association (SBA) "listed a paralegal phone number for laid-off employees to appeal their terminations. The number was an automated line for an apartment building."
According toAxios, one SBA worker "received two different firing emails with attachments... each with a different reason they were being let go."
"The first one said they were being let go because 'you have failed to demonstrate fitness for continued federal employment," Axios reported. "The second one hedged on the reason: '[Y]ou are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the agency's current needs and/or your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency."
Wiredreported that workers at the CFPB "were informed that they had been fired with a frenetic email" in which "some affected employees were addressed as [EmployeeFirstName][EmployeeLastName], [Job Title], [Division]."
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a large swath of federal workers, said in a statement earlier this week that "the Musk-Trump administration's purge of the federal civil service is illegal, terrible for the country, and paves the way for increased corruption."
"While Musk and Trump are distracting their followers with supposed 'savings' from these mass layoffs, which my Republican colleagues correctly note are a tiny fraction of all federal spending, they are preparing to enact tax cuts that will shower hundreds of times as much money on the rich," said Beyer. "None of this is about saving money, it is about Musk and Trump enriching themselves and their wealthy friends while making huge cuts to services Americans depend on."
The "mass firing spree," said one union leader, is "about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence."
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) protest against firings during a rally to defend federal workers in Washington, D.C. on February 11, 2025.
(Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Feb 14, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
The Trump administration intensified its large-scale purge of the federal government on Thursday by moving to fire potentially hundreds of thousands of probationary employees, an effort that one leading union condemned as a power grab aimed at forcing agencies to capitulate to the whims of a lawless president.
The new flurry of terminations impacted workers across at least seven federal agencies, from the Department of Veterans Affairs—which said it fired 1,000 employees—to the Forest Service, Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees—a union that represents more than 750,000 federal workers—said no one should fall for the Trump administration's claim that the mass firings are about federal employees' performance or enhancing government "efficiency."
"This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office," Kelley said in a statement Thursday. "These firings are not about poor performance—there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence."
Vowing to "fight these firings every step of the way," Kelley said terminated employees were "given no notice, no due process, and no opportunity to defend themselves in a blatant violation of the principles of fairness and merit that are supposed to govern federal employment."
"We will stand with every impacted employee, pursue every legal challenge available, and hold this administration accountable for its reckless actions," said Kelley. "Federal employees are not disposable, and we will not allow the government to treat them as such."
"None of this is about saving money, it is about Musk and Trump enriching themselves and their wealthy friends while making huge cuts to services Americans depend on."
The new purge targeting more recently hired government employees marks the latest salvo in the Trump administration's far-reaching assault on federal agencies, an effort spearheaded by unelected billionaire Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. President Donald Trump has given the advisory commission unprecedented authority over federal hiring, effectively installing Musk as the leader of a shadow government in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Postnoted that "the latest data shows there were more than 220,000 federal employees within their one-year probationary period as of last March."
"These workers typically have little protection from being fired without cause," the Post observed.
In addition to firing rank-and-file workers, Trump has removed independent inspectors general, top federal prosecutors, National Labor Relations Board officials, and the head of the Office of Government Ethics, among others.
The new administration's sweeping attacks on the federal workforce, which have drawn union-led legal challenges, have left career civil servants confused, demoralized, and fearful of the future—music to the ears of far-right officials like Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who has expressed his desire to leave government employees "traumatically affected."
An anonymous OPM employee wrote for Slate last week that agency workers "are just as frustrated, confused, and traumatized as the rest of America."
"When I started my job at OPM, I swore an oath to the Constitution, and to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, making it especially awful that the threat to our government is coming from inside my own office building," the worker wrote. "The villains here aren't the civil servants working to serve the American people."
A purge of the federal workforce and wholesale dismantling of government departments were central goals of the far-right Project 2025 agenda authored by Vought and others in Trump's orbit. The playbook called on the new administration to disempower career civil servants and "fill its ranks with political appointees."
In addition to leading OMB, Vought is serving as acting director of the CFPB, an agency hit particularly hard by Thursday's purge. Reuters reported that "a new category of employees" at the consumer agency "received termination notices on Thursday... in a sign that the Trump administration was going beyond probationary employees as it looks to fire federal staff."
"Notices to dozens of so-called 'term employees,' full-time workers on contracts with end dates, began arriving Thursday evening, letting them know they were being terminated the same day," Reuters reported. "Some staff discovered they had lost access to the agency's IT systems before receiving their termination letters."
The sloppy and chaotic nature of the purge underscored what critics say is a reckless evisceration of government in service of a far-right ideological project.
The Post reported that the Small Business Association (SBA) "listed a paralegal phone number for laid-off employees to appeal their terminations. The number was an automated line for an apartment building."
According toAxios, one SBA worker "received two different firing emails with attachments... each with a different reason they were being let go."
"The first one said they were being let go because 'you have failed to demonstrate fitness for continued federal employment," Axios reported. "The second one hedged on the reason: '[Y]ou are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the agency's current needs and/or your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency."
Wiredreported that workers at the CFPB "were informed that they had been fired with a frenetic email" in which "some affected employees were addressed as [EmployeeFirstName][EmployeeLastName], [Job Title], [Division]."
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a large swath of federal workers, said in a statement earlier this week that "the Musk-Trump administration's purge of the federal civil service is illegal, terrible for the country, and paves the way for increased corruption."
"While Musk and Trump are distracting their followers with supposed 'savings' from these mass layoffs, which my Republican colleagues correctly note are a tiny fraction of all federal spending, they are preparing to enact tax cuts that will shower hundreds of times as much money on the rich," said Beyer. "None of this is about saving money, it is about Musk and Trump enriching themselves and their wealthy friends while making huge cuts to services Americans depend on."
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