The Judge hearing a lawsuit filed against six Federal agencies asked specifically to hear from the head of Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Charles Ezell had submitted an affidavit and the Judge wanted to see him questioned. This all started a few weeks ago when OPM issued an email firing hundreds of probationary employees. So, on March 13, when DOJ did not produce that head of OPM for a court hearing, the Judge remarked, as he should:

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth.”

It is a fair conclusion that when a party to a lawsuit does not bring to court a witness previously requested, that that party is hiding something. DOJ did not bring to court a witness previously requested. Any judge in the country would be suspicious of such a failure.

So, it is not surprising that Judge Alsup then ordered that all the probationary employees – teens of thousands – be reinstated by those six agencies. See CBS news report for more information.

OPM Not in the Supervisory Chain-of-Command

The problem DOJ ran into was that OPM terminated these probationary employees. But, these probationary employees did not work for OPM. They worked for six other agencies. Pres. Elon tried to fix that issue last week by sending out another OPM email saying OPM’s original email was simply a “guideline” to those six agencies. OPM did not actually fire anyone. But, of course, the language in OPM’s original email was clear. It was firing employees at six agencies, Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury. OPM almost certainly has no authority to fire non-OPM employees.

Judge Alsop was also offended by the manner in which these workers were fired. The OPM email said they all suffered from poor performance. But, in most cases, these workers all had positive reviews or no reviews. OPM used that language to avoid the requirement of a Reduction in Force (RIF). Firing these probationary employees was a clumsy effort to fire Federal workers quickly and thereby avoid the 60 day requirement for an actual RIF.