President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration is allegedly refusing to produce a high-ranking agency leader for testimony in connection with a lawsuit in which he’s accused of unlawfully firing thousands of federal government workers still in the probationary period of their employment.
Attorneys at the Justice Department’s Civil Division said they “will not produce” Charles Ezell, the acting director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), despite a federal judge in San Francisco issuing a court order requiring him to testify in person later this month, according to a Wednesday court filing from the plaintiffs in the case.
“Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court hold a status conference as soon as possible, to discuss Defendants’ notice to Plaintiffs that they do not intend to comply with this Court’s order requiring Defendant Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell to appear at the preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for 8:00 a.m. on March 13, 2025,” the filing states. “Plaintiffs have brought this issue immediately to the Court’s attention following confirmation of Defendants’ position, and respectfully seek this Court’s advice regarding compliance and enforcement of the Court’s order. Plaintiffs are prepared to file an expedited motion to show cause why Defendants should not be held in contempt, as needed.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup responded swiftly, scheduling a mandatory status conference for Thursday afternoon to address the matter.
The controversy stems from a lawsuit filed last month by five labor unions and five nonprofit organizations against OPM and Ezell. The 34-page complaint accuses Ezell of ordering federal agencies across the country to terminate thousands of employees “by sending them standardized notices of termination, drafted by OPM, that falsely state that the terminations are for performance reasons.”
Plaintiffs argued that Congress, not OPM, controls federal employment and that the legislature had already determined that each agency is responsible for managing its employees. The filing requested a temporary restraining order halting any additional firings at OPM’s behest.
“OPM lacks the constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authority to order federal agencies to terminate employees in this fashion that Congress has authorized those agencies to hire and manage, and certainly has no authority to require agencies to perpetrate a massive fraud on the federal workforce by lying about federal workers’ ‘performance,’ to detriment of those workers, their families, and all those in the public and private sectors who rely upon those workers for important services,” the complaint states.
The government opposed the TRO, asserting that the plaintiffs had to pursue their claims through the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The administration further argued that a TRO would “interfere with the President’s ability to manage, shape, and streamline the federal workforce to more closely reflect policy preferences and the needs of the American public.”
During a hearing before Alsup last week, the Trump administration claimed OPM did not directly order other agencies to fire the probationary employees, rather, OPM requested that agencies review their probationary workers and make determinations on their fitness to continue their employment. Ezell also filed a sworn declaration stating that OPM “did not direct agencies to terminate any particular probationary employees” and “did not create a ‘mass termination plan.””
However, based on the available evidence, Alsup said the government’s position — that the firings were not coordinated — appeared to be untenable.
“How could so much of the workforce be amputated suddenly overnight?” the judge asked rhetorically, according to a Politico report. “It’s so irregular and so widespread and so aberrant from the history of our country. How could that all happen? Each agency decided on its own to do something so aberrational? I don’t believe it. I believe they were ordered to do so. That’s the way the evidence points.”
The hearing ended with Alsup finding that the mass firings were likely unlawful and directed OPM to notify multiple agencies that it lacked the authority to order the terminations.
“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 at another agency,” Alsup said, according to a courtroom report from the Government Executive.
The judge then set a hearing for March 13, during which plaintiffs’ counsel would be able to question Ezell.
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