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The Trump administration has been accused by another judge of failing to comply with his court order — in this case to reinstate federal employees fired during Elon Musk’s DOGE purges.
Six federal agencies — the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury — were ordered by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for Northern California to rehire all fired probationary employees.
But the Trump administration had responded by putting the fired workers on paid administrative leave.
“The court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary workers are being rehired, but then placed on leave en masse,” Alsup said in an order late Monday. “This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore,” he added.
The case appeared to be the second instance of the Trump administration dodging direct court orders, triggering fears that Donald Trump is creating a constitutional crisis by ignoring the ultimate arbiter of law, the courts, as established in the Constitution.
Last week the Trump administration appeared to openly defy U.S. District Judge Boasberg’s order blocking deporting Venezuelans without following the law, and to return those who had been illegally deported.
Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk both responded by calling for the impeachment of judges whose rulings they don’t like.
In a rare rebuke, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts said Monday that such an action is an inappropriate response to a disagreement over a judicial decision that goes against more than two centuries of American history.
In the latest apparent court order dodge, Alsup demanded an update from the Trump administration on the status of the employees by Tuesday afternoon. Department of Justice lawyers claimed they were not defying Alsup’s order, but that putting the employees on paid administrative leave was an “intermediate measure taken by a number of the agencies in order to return probationary employees to full duty status.”
It is unclear if the Trump administration provided a specific timeline for when those employees will be fully restored to their positions.
If the agencies involved follow the judge’s orders, some 24,000 federal employees should return to work.
Another ruling, by Judge Hames Bredar in Maryland, ruled that another 13 agencies had unlawfully fired their workers, and demanded that they be reinstated.
All of the agencies involved in Bredar’s ruling issued updates on Tuesday saying they were working to restore the workers to their jobs, and in most cases provided evidence that they had notified workers about their reinstatement.
However, those notices said their jobs were only guaranteed until March 27, which is when Bredar’s order is set to expire. Bredar has warned the agencies he is prepared to extend his order if necessary.
One agency appeared to be taking active steps to bring back its workers: The Department of Transportation. It told its 757 impacted workers that they would be reinstated in full by Thursday.
Several hundred of the Transportation Department employees fired in the initial purge worked for the Federal Aviation Administration as maintenance mechanics, environmental protection specialists, aviation safety assistants, and management and program assistants.
Trump and Musk’s attempts to dissolve huge swathes of the federal bureaucracy have been largely ruled as illegal firings when tested in the courts.
On Tuesday another federal judge blocked Trump and Musk’s attempts to shut down and scrap USAID, which carries international development, aid and influence work on behalf of the U.S. government.
