The Trump administration's Office of Personnel Management has updated its guidance regarding the firing of new hires under the 90-day probationary period, advising federal agencies and departments to consult with it before making any new rules.
The new guidance updated an Inauguration Day memo by Charles Ezell, the OPM's acting director, to federal agency and department chiefs titled "Guidance on Probationary Periods, Administrative Leave, and Details."
The updated memo announced that departments and agencies should clear rules through the OPM as lawsuits and challenges to probationary firings have been filed against the Trump administration.
Listed in bold in the updated memo was: "OPM requests that agencies not issue any agency-specific rules until such rules have been reviewed and approved by OPM."
The updated guidance came less than a week after a federal judge questioned the authority for without-cause termination of probationary government employees.
Thousands of probationary employees have been let go and some have sued to keep their jobs after being hired during the lame-duck period of the Biden administration.
Trump and his attorneys have argued that former President Joe Biden should not have the authority to load up the incoming administration with his hand-picked employees without Trump having the right of refusal.
The new guidance came a day after Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led the committee's Democrats in sending a letter to Ezell requesting documents and information regarding the Trump administration's efforts to purge Biden's new hires.
"We write in strong opposition to the expansion of the Trump administration's efforts to purge nonpartisan civil servants from the federal workforce, specifically recent unlawful mass terminations of employees in probationary status," the letter stated, suggesting Biden's late-term hires are not partisan, but Trump's firing of them would be.
"Probationary employees are often those who have been recently hired or promoted. Indiscriminately firing thousands of these employees threatens the future of the nonpartisan federal workforce and our government's ability to deliver life-saving services to the American people. We strongly urge the administration to reinstate all unlawfully terminated probationary status employees and cease plans to carry out further reductions in force."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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