A federal judge expressed sympathy on Tuesday for thousands of federal employees who were suddenly fired by the Trump administration earlier this year, but he also voiced skepticism about whether reinstating them to their jobs was a proper remedy and questioned what the courts could ultimately do.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson made the comments during a hearing in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, as part of a lawsuit brought by 19 states and the District of Columbia. The suit alleges the states were harmed by the mass firings of probationary workers, because states did not have warnings required by law to help them prepare for the unemployed.
