A federal judge yesterday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind earlier instructions telling agencies to “promptly determine whether these employees should be retained at the agency.”
The directions, communicated in a Jan. 20 memo and Feb. 14 internal email, are “illegal” and “should be stopped, rescinded,” Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California said.
The ruling does not reinstate dismissed employees.
The judge instructed the Office of Personnel Management to communicate to the Department of Defense today — ahead of expected probationary terminations — that he has ruled they are invalid.
Alsup has also ordered a hearing scheduled in which Acting Office of Personnel Management Director Charles Ezell will testify. The timing of that hearing is unclear.
“The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said Thursday night. “It can hire its own employees, yes. Can fire them. But it cannot order or direct some other agency to do so.”
“OPM has no authority to tell any agency in the United States government, other than itself, who they can hire and who they can fire, period. So on the merits, I think, we start with that important proposition,” he said.
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