Judge orders Feds rehire workers falsely fired for lousy performance A federal judge has ordered six US government agencies to immediately rehire employees fired this year by the Trump administration. Speaking in a court in San Francisco, Judge William Alsup on Thursday ordered the Departments of Defense, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, and Treasury to bring back sacked staff, …
"The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order."
Article III of the U.S. Constitution establishes the judicial branch as one of the three separate and distinct branches of the federal government. These three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial — operate within a constitutional system of “checks and balances.”"
Sad day when the government failed highschool civics and history.
Literally they are different branches.
I'm confused. What do you think the government is misunderstanding?
They clearly refer to the judicial and executive branches as separate. Their point is that the president outranks a district court judge, because there's only one president but over 600 judges at that level, so it's ridiculous to have any one of them able to stymie the president's whole program.
Whether that's a good point, I don't know. But it's clear enough, and it doesn't rely on confusing the branches.
Disclaimer, I think Trump and his arsewipes are all of them walking proof that the Second Amendment doesn't work. But that's not a reason to trot out specious arguments against them.
1) Trump and company enthusiastically used incredibly activist Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to hold up large parts of the Biden national agenda, and to feed nonsensical cases to the Supreme Court. Like many restraints on presidential power, people's opinions seem to depend on whether they support the current president.
2) Congress and the Supreme Court can (and do) manage the jurisdictions of the district courts. If MAGA is convinced they are starting a 1000 year Reich and will not be needing the likes of Judge Kacsmaryk in the future, they can change things how they want. If with that power they still allow another free and fair election in the USA, a post-MAGA president might appreciate the power as well.
3) Trump didn't fire those people, the OPM did, and they didn't follow the existing laws when they did. And they didn't claim they inherited some "unitary-authority" from Trump, they just tried to misapply the existing laws, and wouldn't even file briefs if it meant they had to come testify about it
There is nothing to be confused about.
The president can make orders. If he wants to make laws then it goes through congress and something becomes law. His orders cannot supersede laws already passed by congress. It needs to be changed or revoked by congress first. The law in question in this case is employment law which was agreed and passed through congress.
In a democracy these checks and balances stop one single individual from taking complete control. That single person on their own cannot pass laws and the judiciary ensure the laws are enforced.
This is why you have two separate democratically voted branches of government. The president does not outrank a district judge because they don't work for the same branch and the president is not a judge.
It would appear that Trump is attempting to walk the same road that King Charles I walked back in the 1640s: back then Charlie had a functional system to work within and completely failed to grasp that to exercise power he had to be part of the system and was not in complete control of the system.
Trump is similarly failing to grasp that he has to work with the governmental system, not try to usurp said system. Yes, he can order a downsizing of headcounts in agencies but this has to be done within existing employment law without lying to try to get around the law. The problem is that Trump didn't learn this last time he was in power and is not likely to learn it now either, and we've got another few years of this idiot to endure.
It's not failing to understand the system. He understands it perfectly. The aim here is to shape public opinion to be against the judiciary. The "Look, I want to do all the amazing things, truly amazing things but the judges keep stopping me" angle. It's a power play first and foremost. I just hope the American people that actually voted this clown in aren't stupid enough to be taken in by this.
"He understands it perfectly" possibly but more likely he is a moron who doesn't think very deeply about anything and acts on impulse. Whole administration is chaotic and since your post most of the National Security have demonstrated themselves as lying incompetents. Praying that his cheeseburger diet does its stuff.
As https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle has pointed out in most of his videos since Trump was re-presidented. The job of enforcing congresses laws, or judicial rulings falls to the Executive Branch, who are in no mood to play ball at the moment, and can stonewall anything Trump wants.... for at least the length of his term.
No, I'm saying the Executive Branch can ignore the Judical Branch to it's hearts content, as long as Congress is willing not to impeach Trump. Impeachment is the only process to remove The President when he will not follow the will of either Congress or the Judicial Branch. 2 attempts at impeachment later, the republicans are not willing to remove him. The checks and balances are only a gentleman's agreement, made at a time when leaders had honour. Trump has no honour, and until he is either impeached, or his term ends, he is king, and can do as he wishes, including it seems, pardoning himself for all eternity.
Just as well he's not elected because AFAICS having all officials elected is a weakness of the US situation. Judges are appointed on their basis of knowledge of the law and competence, not mass appeal. There need to be a few competent people around.
If you like you could wander into his court and tell him what you think of him. You'd discover something else about a judge's powers.
Doctor Syntax: Judges are appointed on their basis of knowledge of the law and competence
Really? I thought that all federal judges were appointed by the sitting president. There were Senate hearings to confirm the appointments of Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh etc., who were political appointees. Note that during Barak Obama's second term there was a vacant seat on the US Supreme Court, but the Republican senate majority leader refused to allow him to be considered:
"On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
This vacancy arose during Obama's final year as president. Hours after Scalia's death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would consider any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void. He said the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president—to be elected later that year. Senate Democrats criticized the move as being unprecedented. They argued that there was sufficient time to vote on a nominee before the election."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_nomination#:~:text=On%20March%2016%2C%202016%2C%20President,had%20died%20one%20month%20earlier.
Of course I am not claiming that any judges appointed are deficient in legal knowledge and competence, just that there is a political side to consider as well.
Meanwhile, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed late in 2020 a month before *that* Presidential election, McConnell couldn't wait for the body to cool before announcing they'd push through Trump's nomination (Amy Coney Barrett) before The Other Party won and flipped the scales.
"Moscow Mitch" has since chosen to retire next year after seeing the unbridled shitshow his party has become under Drumpf part 2.
The articleprovides several accounts where this particular judge has shown the ability to quickly learn concepts and make reasonable decisions.
If you have counter evidence from the public record, please talk to that. But for now, it is reasonable to believe that the judge's rulings and questions deserve to be answered... Also reasonable to think the administration will continue to stonewall him because while there are no limits on his rulings, the enforcement is not up to him.
Did you even read the article; people were being sacked for incompetence when their performance reviews proved otherwise. The Judge was merely stating you can't fire people on a false pretext. Apart form anything else if sacked because of Musk cuts then they are entitled to redundancy and or earl;y retirement which won't be available if sacked for failure ot perform the job adequately. Judge is most definitely not an idiot but the number of downvotes you have suggest an alternative choice.
Put it this way:
Executive says what they want.
Legislative passes the laws to make it possible.
Judicial tells you whether those laws were followed.
In this case, whether the separate existence of the branches is recognised or not, it's clear that they don't understand that "Executive said so" doesn't immediately translate into things happening, and that Judicial is there precisely to be able to rule on the legality of their actions.
If the Executive wants this, they can instruct Legislative to build a law that says that federal workers are working only at will. Judicial will then rule based on the laws in force.
What's actually happened is Executive said "we want this", Legislative have done nothing about that, and Judicial has said "You can't, the current laws don't allow it".
Which is PRECISELY what's supposed to happen.
The Judicial side absolutely has the ability to say no. That's precisely why they exist, to stop "Executive" turning into "Dictator that does whatever they want". Funny how that turned out.
The President does not outrank the judges - they are co-equal branches of government. A ruling in a federal court has as much power as an order from the President. When they clash, they work their way up the courts until the Supreme Court, where they can limit the actions of the President.
The idea that the President has some sort of supremacy and that courts should not be able to stop their illegal actions is absurd.
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The consitution does exactly what you suggestion it shouldn't: it empowers the courts to stop any actions they consider illegal or unconstitutional. If plaintiffs disagree they have the right to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court; the executive also has the opportunity, with Congress, to change the law.
What's worrying at the moment is that the executive has started ignorning many of these rulings, knowing that it can play for time at which point any decisions may be moot. In addition, SCOTUS gave the president almost infinite leverage to break the law, which he may well interpret as allowing him to ignore court judgements.
If you send out a standard template letter stating that the reason for dismissal was "incompetence" and someone has received an excellent rating in their most recent performance review they have a legitimate case for requesting details of exactly where they have been incompetent, and importantly why they were not told of their incompetence in time to improve before things got so bad they had to be dismissed. And especially if that letter results in thousands of dismissals without warning.
I do not know about employment law in the USA, but I am guessing that some employees have employment rights and cannot be fired ad hoc (hence the claimed reason of incompetence), there has to be a valid reason.
And frankly, I have worked in companies where the most incompetent people were in charge, and would never fire themselves, so blamed everyone else ...
*( Excellent book by Norman Dixon analysing some British** military disasters. Well worth reading for anyone interested in either military history or idiocy. Although you will wonder how the British ever got an empire after reading it.)
** Other countries also have military disasters, but Dixon was British, knew about at the British ones, and did not want to insult another nation by parading theirs, plus, there is an embarrassment of choice for us Brits in this field.
Believe civil service employee rules are designed specifically to prevent politicians from hiring or firing civil servants. Civil servants employment is based on merit, not who you know. President is a politician in theory. Laws are supposed to interpreted by courts and judges. They can say when those laws are being bent or broken by the executive branch.
Not in the US, just been curious as to what the heck is happening over there.
Born and raised USAian. I'm wondering the same thing. Never seen such dysfunction and corruption in government, and I lived in Chicago. Rational people are saying WTF all day, every day. The only consolation is that I'm old, and not likely to see what happened to my rather nice country in a few years.
I thought he was being maliciously compliant: Specifically when ordered to restore ALL payments from USAID, he said 'okay, but why does a judge want us to pay fraudulent accounts'? Which kind of made the judge look incompetent.
Mind you, that judge was also supposedly biased as his wife's charity received money from USAID? Yes, I do follow a range of media so there's a real mix of things reported. Don't know what's true and what's spin, but I guess you could say it's 'entertaining' for a given value of 'wtf'.
What a tangled mess American politics has become, eh? Almost as bad as UK politics...
Congress is due to go into recess and many Republicans have been "advised" not to hold town hall meetings with their voters. Mind you, away from the Canadian border, I suspect that the potential damage to the economy and their own personal situation hasn't shown up yet. That might be coming if Elon gets his way with some of the welfare, over which the Executive has zero control, or the revenue. But this might all be part of the plan to fuck things up so much that people will scream for a saviour, even one with a fake tan and a hair weave…
I wonder to what extent those coming up for re-election might be starting to wonder what state the economy will be in by then and starting to think that blind support might not make them re-electable.
There are YouTube videos of "town hall" meetings in Republican House of Representatives members' districts. After the questions and booing get contentious, the Representative usually beats a hasty retreat. We're calling it Bidenfreude here, and the source of the constituent's ire the Trumpflation, and impending Trumpcession. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bwU09564Y4
"We all remember the "pedo guy" debacle."
That was the first awareness I had of Musk. Was really disgusted especially as he was trying to push an untried bit of tech on a team that hadn't got time to train with it and test it as they were on the clock to save lives. Sure, the mini sub was a nice idea - if it would work - but the logistics of such a rescue precludes the deployment of a niche and expensive bit of tech. It would need to be more widely adopted with rescue teams such that there are trained crew who can come in with it and seamlessly integrate into the rescue efforts for it to be of value, and that's simply doesn't happen. It's not like in Thunderbirds, ffs.
Damn, that's where Musk's head is, isn't it: Thinking of making International Rescue a reality.
Musk really does need a responsible adult.
It's also highly probable, especially given the amount of time it took for the rescue that a mini-sub could maneuver in an underwater cave. When I took my certified divers course we were told to stay away from underwater caves. The main reasons were getting lost or getting stuck, both of which usually have fatal consequences.
As an ex-Cave Dive (UK), I can assure that trying to use a mini-sub in a cave sump is a very bad idea. Most fatalities in cave diving are due to the diver losing their way and running out of air. Visibility in quite a lot of caves is quite poor to start with and a sudden wrong movement could stir up silt and mud reducing visibility to the point that you feel you are swimming in tomato soup. We usually followed guide lines that had already been laid or, if exploring, reeled out as we swam along.
The main rescuer of the Thai cave rescue produced a book which described the rescue. One section of cave that they had to travese with the children was one person wide - about a foot - something a sub would not fit through. In addition to size problems, there is the guidance issue - a sub would have difficulty following a guide line. So the whole idea was a waste of time and not worth considering.
Phil.
p.s. Open water diving scared the shit out of me - I got agoraphobic!
The specious argument that one judge is attempting to thwart the president is a ham fisted straw man (logical fallacy) which attempts to caricature the legal process and the judge himself, whilst ignoring the point that the judge makes about these actions falling outside of the current law. The judge on this occasion is upholding the law since congress refuses to restrain the washed up apprentice presenter and his Henry Ford wanna be sidekick. Those harmed are asking questions of law to the judiciary which they are answering, literally doing their job. When ever it does not go the American wotsit's way he tries to claim it is anti democratic, willfully ignoring that like many democracies to avoid the tyranny of the majority includes limits on everyone in the form of laws and these are changeable by congress not the president alone, these are adjudicated by the judiciary, not the president alone. The system implied by his statements seems alot more like absolute monarchy or Nazism than anything he characterizes as such.
The long one and two year probationary periods are, it seems, used not only for people in their new federal jobs but also can apply when being promoted from within: so if you are a great doer but turn out to be a rubbish manager you can be demoted within your probationary period without all the fuss and bother.
So when DOGE told agencies to get rid of all people in probation that included some senior and experienced people working up in their careers.
@ChodeMonkey
"That's not really punishment. That is rectifying an error. What punishment would be appropriate in your view?"
Rectifying the error is a good place to start. If it becomes a recurring problem instead of an oversight that can be so easily rectified then I expect more will need to be done. For those fired inappropriately.
@I am David Jones
"No chance, they won’t rehire them until the Supreme Court confirms the decision."
Maybe I dont follow the way the US system works but as in the article- "A federal judge has ordered six US government agencies to immediately rehire employees fired this year by the Trump administration.". I dont think they have a choice. Only to challenge it after rehiring.
@Yet Another Anonymous coward
"Yes they can simply not do it. What's the judge going to do? Arrest him?"
Arrest who? Charles Ezell? If they dont reinstate the workers I expect the workers would be compensated and some sort of proceedings would be taken against the OPM department/leadership.
@AC
"Careful now, @codejunky. You'll put your back out contorting like that to justify the illegal actions of President Musk's DOGE."
Erm, did you read my comments? At what point do I justify anything illegal? I actually say if they have fired people illegally then it should be reversed.
Are you a bot troll or just that stupid? Hard to tell sometimes.
Yes they can simply not do it. What's the judge going to do? Arrest him?
Could do. Ignoring a court order can be construed as contempt of court - which is a decision made by the judge - with a penalty decided by the judge. Courts are reluctant to do it, but if you keep ignoring their orders (or refuse to turn up when summonsed) - then all sorts of interesting things can happen.
"What's the judge going to do? Arrest him?"
Assuming you mean Charles Ezell then possibly, or maybe someone else lower in the food chain. Failure to rehire them would be contempt of court and the judge has means to deal with that. I can see why Ezell didn't want to appear - he has to either take the blame or drop DOGE in it. It's a tough position but then it's what he's paid for.
"No chance, they won’t rehire them until the Supreme Court confirms the decision."
Unless and until a higher court reverses it Alsup's ruling is the one that stands. Failing to follow it would be contempt of court so he could indeed order the arrest of whoever he feels is responsible.
The basic problem here is the fucked-up American employment laws that allow the unfair firing of people without any reason. Musk simply misunderstood that the rules are a little more protective of federal employees. Not surprising, as he's an idiot. The government agencies were just so afraid of their glorious leader that they implemented the bullshit firings without standing up for their staff. Testicles need to be grown to fight this with principles and conviction.
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