Last week, the Trump administration conducted a mass firing of probationary federal employees across several agencies, targeting tens of thousands of people and creating a sense of chaos and outrage among government workers. Now one lawyer—who is challenging his own firing by the Trump administration—is trying to defend those workers from layoffs.
On Monday, Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), filed initial requests to “stay,” or pause, the terminations of six probationary employees across various executive agencies. This is a separate agency from the Department of Justice’s prosecutorial agency. Probationary employees have usually been hired recently, or are longtime federal employees who have recently moved to new positions. The requests were filed with the U.S. Merit Systems Protections Board (MSPB), the quasi-judicial body that reviews decisions made by the Office of Personnel Management and has the authority to halt terminations.
