Two Weeks of Work: Hampton Dellinger
In this post, I used Kel McClanahan’s lawsuit against OPM, claiming the email via which Elon Musk sent out his five bullets email was added without proper privacy review, as an example of the added benefits that lawsuits can have, whether or not they succeed. (Though Elon’s email has raised the likelihood the lawsuit will succeed, because it has undermined DOJ’s claims about the email thus far.)
Another example of Hampton Dellinger’s decision to sue to get his job back. In the end, SCOTUS will likely let Trump fire Dellinger. But before SCOTUS does that, Dellinger has made a record of problems with the DOGE firings and gotten at least six of the firings halted for 45 days.
As the timeline below notes, Trump tried to fire Dellinger on February 7. Three days later, on February 10, he sued and asked for a restraining order, preventing Trump from removing him. Judge Amy Berman Jackson first paused, then granted the TRO; because she restored the status quo, Dellinger regained access to his office. Trump appealed, ultimately to the Supreme Court, but after delaying a week, on February 21, they deferred the decision until today (when ABJ has a hearing scheduled and is expected to make a decision that can formally be appealed).
Even as that happened, starting on February 12, Trump started his purge of people he claimed were probationary.
At least six of the people fired brought claims before the Office of Special Counsel, Dellinger’s office, claiming that the mass firings were not permissible. Some also argued they weren’t probationary (remember that some agencies tried to retroactively change the probationary period from one to two years). Others claimed they were not provided treatment to which veterans are entitled.
On Monday, word started leaking today that Dellinger was asking the MSPB to reinstate those six employees. Citing that, Dellinger provided a public statement explaining that some of the firings violated employment law.
OSC does not typically comment on stay requests while they are awaiting a decision by the MSPB. Consistent with OSC’s past practice, Special Counsel Dellinger did not comment publicly on the pending request prior to its apparent disclosure by one of the agencies named as a respondent. Because his stay requests are now being publicly discussed, the Special Counsel provides the following statement.
“Since the Civil Service Reform Act was passed in 1978, the merit system principles have guided how federal government agencies hire, manage, and, if necessary, remove federal employees. These principles establish that all federal employees, including those in a probationary status, should be evaluated based on individual performance.”
Dellinger also released a redacted version of one of his requests, sent on February 21, for the Merit Systems Protection Board to stay the termination of six employees, with descriptions of all six employees. As one example, one of the employees is a disabled veteran whose supervisor had, the day he was fired, talked about what an exceptional employee he was.
Complainant served as a probationary Program Support Assistant in the competitive service with ED. Ex. 1, Complainant Declaration, ¶¶ 3-4. Complainant was hired with a 100% disabled veteran’s preference after 14 years with the Army. Id., ¶ 5. Throughout his tenure, he received consistent praise from leadership, and there is no evidence of any performance issues. Id., ¶ 9. However, on February 12, 2025, Complainant was issued a termination notice that stated, in relevant part:
I regrettably inform you that I am removing you from your position of Program Support Specialist with the agency and the federal civil service effective today.
Ex. 2, ED Notice. Earlier that same day, Complainant s supervisor had commended his exceptional performance, praising his dedication and calling him a perfect fit for the team. Ex. 1, ¶ 11.
Several of their supervisors tried to overrule the firings. That’s one thing Dellinger used to substantiate his finding that this was a Reduction in Force finding, not termination because of performance.
As Dellinger laid out, Reductions in Force have their own requirements, even for probationary employees.
Because 1) agencies are prohibited from circumventing the requirements set forth in the RIF statute and regulations, which apply equally to probationary employees, 2) the evidence indicates that Agencies improperly terminated Complainants without reference to those requirements, and 3) the violation denied Complainants both substantive and procedural rights, OSC has reasonable grounds to conclude that Agencies have engaged in prohibited personnel practices.
Agencies must follow the RIF statute and regulations when the employee’s release is required for reasons including lack of work, shortage of funds, and reorganization. See 5 C.F.R. § 351.201. The regulations define a reorganization as “the planned elimination, addition, or redistribution of functions or duties in an organization.” 5 C.F.R. § 351.203. The Federal Circuit has “defined a ‘reduction in force’ as an ‘administrative procedure’ by which agencies eliminate jobs and reassign or separate employees who occupied the abolished positions.” See Tippins v. U.S., 93 F.4th 1370, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2024). OPM’s website similarly explains that, “An agency is required to use the RIF procedures when an employee is faced with separation or downgrading for a reason such as reorganization, lack of work, [or] shortage of funds….”16
Each agency has the right to decide whether a RIF is necessary and when the RIF will take place. However, agencies do not have discretion to bypass RIF procedures when they are reorganizing or reducing the size of components based on lack of work or budgetary concerns.
Employees removed in an RIF get additional benefits, including notice.
Yesterday, the MSPB granted those stays. Dellinger issued a statement calling on agency heads to rescind unlawful terminations.
“I am very grateful the MSPB has agreed to postpone these six terminations,” said Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. “These stays represent a small sample of all the probationary employees who have been fired recently so our work is far from done. Agency leaders should know that OSC will continue to pursue allegations of unlawful personnel actions, which can include asking MSPB for relief for a broader group of fired probationary employees. I urge agency leaders to voluntarily and immediately rescind any and every unlawful termination of probationary employees.”
The day after Dellinger recommended those stays, Democracy Forward provided OSC a list of those original six agencies, plus thirteen more that used standard letters for firing its people, asking that all those firings be stayed too.
- U.S. Department of Education
- U.S. Department of Energy 3
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- AmeriCorps
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- U.S. Department of Interior
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Export-Import Bank
- Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
- General Services Administration
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- Institute of Museum and Library Services
- Internal Revenue Service
- National Archies and Records Administration
- National Science Foundation
- Surface Transportation Board
Dellinger’s success at reviewing and staying these six people’s termination matters for a whole bunch of reasons, even if he is removed today or in days ahead.
First, by labeling this an RIF (and releasing that decision publicly), it’ll help lawsuits designed to reinstate larger number of people get standing that otherwise would have to go through this process (which is the basis on which courts have rejected some unions’ efforts to slow the DOGE).
Establishing the import of benefits tied to RIFs is particularly important because, as Wired reported, DOGE appears to be trying to automate mass firing even further.
Finally, recall that the day after Trump fired Dellinger, he named Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins Acting Special Counsel. The VA has been among the most aggressive in firings, carrying out a second round of firings in recent days, for a total of 2,400 people.
Had Dellinger not gotten the slight reprieve on his own firing, it would have left one of the people most aggressively pursuing Trump’s purge in charge.
Again, I think it likely SCOTUS will let Trump fire Dellinger in short order.
But the fight was worth it.
Update: In a Northern CA lawsuit on behalf of the fired workers, Judge William Alsup is asking the government to answer two questions in advance of a hearing today that get at the same issue Dellinger raised.
1. To what extent did OPM or individuals within OPM direct other agencies to terminate probationary employees based on performance or misconduct? If any such direction (or advice) is in writing, please provide the documents to the Court.
2. How can an agency lawfully terminate a probationary employee on the basis of “performance” if that employee’s performance was in fact satisfactory?
Update: Having just listened to the hearing, ABJ sounds like she’s going to extend the TRO for a few days so she can rule on the merits. It further sounds she’ll say the Special Counsel is so unique that the President can only fire him for cause.
Timeline
[docket]
February 7, 2025: Sergio Gor fires Hampton Dellinger
February 10, 2025: Dellinger sues and moves for a TRO; Amy Berman Jackson issues an administrative stay
February 11, 2025: Trump names Doug Collins Acting Special Counsel; appeals stay
February 12, 2025: DC Circuit denies appeal of stay; ABJ issues a TRO; Trump appeals; Trump starts mass firings of probationary employees
February 13, 2025: Trump appeals stay to SCOTUS
February 15, 2025: DC Circuit denies appeal; ABJ consolidates preliminary injunction
February 16, 2025: Trump appeals stay to SCOTUS
February 21, 2025: SCOTUS defers appeal
So the TRO stands? 12 hrs ago:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-suffers-legal-blow-by-supreme-court/ss-AA1zMz1F
Weirdly, I don’t see it anywhere else, though.
Looks like that “news” item is a misreading of the last docket entry, Feb 21, here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24a790.html
Here’s the ABJ docket
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69624836/dellinger-v-bessent/
Last entry shows that the hearing is today at 10 am, with public access phone#
Bruce:
Sometimes it’s really dispiriting when the first and second comments in a thread demonstrate that someone hasn’t read the thread (which described the SCOTUS stance and linked the docket, right there just inches above where you did).
Well, at least it is being discussed, which as you noted is exactly why this needs to be out in the open with court filings. The whole DOGE head secrecy bent (notice how Leavitt sandbagged the WH correspondents, only to be bagged herself by a Washington Examiner leak) is designed precisely to prevent pushback in time to do anything about the decisions. Amid the chaos lies the opportunity to bury other inconvenient facts, like how Bondi so far hasn’t produced any Epstein files (remember these were ‘on her desk’ for pre-release review), or how we seem to be getting many more near misses in air travel, or how Musk gets 38 B$ in government handouts while his DOGE ‘savings’ are mostly bogus.
This is Elon’s coup, and he is getting his grubby hands on all of the data he can for exploitation for cash, attacking his competitors and other oligarch activity.
Apologies, Marcy. I thought it might be a new development, and failed to double check it. The story was 12 hrs old, I supidly assumed it was a development. I should have posted an apology in the thread above, and probably should have blinked a couple times.
.
Also, bad editing on the last sentence; here’s how it should have read: “…the *hearing today is* at 10 am,” which was just me informing about the time in case someone wanted to call the access #. I had read your piece, I always do, but I need to be less sloppy and use the edit feature better.
This post highlights the importance of fighting and not surrendering in advance. Every small delay provide ps room to think and recognize opportunities for larger victories.
I have learned innumerable things from this blog over the years but in the last month this has been the single most valuable lesson I’ve taken away from here: never surrender in advance. Thank you.
The book that made that phrase a pop-culture mantra is Tim Snyder’s On Tyranny. “Don’t obey in advance” is Lesson One of twenty, and the whole thing is worth reading right now–or, if you read it before, rereading.
Snyder has other Lessons, including on language, that resonate for me every day.
Plus, you can read it 45 minutes. Tops. I carry mine around wherever I go.
We will prevail, but it will be baby steps – literally. We are in for a bloody slog (proverbial speaking), but we will prevail.
Talk about retribution – all of these folks getting their jobs back will not forget. They should probably also receive the same protection as a “whistleblower.”
#WhatDoesNotKillUsMakesUsStronger
Judge Alsop’s Question 2 at the end is the big one.
Thousands of dismissal letters have gone out with identical wording, citing “poor performance.” The absurdity of those two words has been made manifest, as fired employees have come forward with reams of high ratings on their performance reviews, as well as employees who got the “poor performance” letter on their first day of work, before even having an opportunity to perform at all.
“Poor performance . . . poor performance . . . poor performance . . . ” To borrow from Inigo Montoya, “You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.”
But make no mistake: there *is* poor performance here. It’s coming from DOGE, OPM, OMB, and the White House.
I was on the negotiating team for a public sector union in one of my earlier positions. We urged employees to document everything because we knew the managers were receiving the same training and that was the only way a job was in danger. Without hyperbole, there is almost no more use for such a union if courts find formal manager-signed positive evaluations can be not just ignored but overridden without evidence.
My company also fires employees with excellent performance reviews. Legal has determined that dumping the entire unit, baby, bathwater and all, is defensible.
Let’s hold some hope that the public unions can prevail. Don’t count on it though.
Wait, the SF case (unions against OPM, judge Alsop) has a hearing scheduled for tomorrow on the TRO and there isn’t a government attorney assigned yet?
Perhaps they fear disbarment like what happened to Rudy and John Eastman. Zealous advocacy is one thing, but the court has to believe that the advocate is at least trying to tell the truth. I can’t see how the government can do that in these cases given the extensive evidence of good performance reviews. So, there is another (real) reason to claim poor performance while noting that DOGE didn’t even do anything to define what standards were missed or do nickel-and-dime performance improvement plans (PIPs) to create a paper trail.
I suspect the reason for the poor reviews is to interfere with getting public assistance whether through jobless benefits or SNAP. This support is state-dependent but it’s clear the GOP attitude is to send everyone to bed without supper (i.e. Glenn Youngkin’s comments in VA) so they won’t have to pay for it.
If the USG gets away with calling RIF terminations as terminations for “poor performance,” — when, in many cases, the documented performance is exceptional or high — then every American employer will try it. Decimating labor law would not be an incidental outcome of this govt’s actions.
NPR had an interview with a DOI guy who got sacked with several commendations and an Administrator of the Year award. He was anonymous, which will soon lead the MAGAtron to claim he’s a shill and NPR set it up. (I got a copy of their script!~)
Public media is a major target, and they’re fighting back in a very strong manner. We’re doubling our yearly contributions.
Just found the script:
“Trump said Wednesday morning on Truth Social that at some point, he will ‘sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these ‘anonymous sources’ even exist, which they largely do not.’
He said the sources are ‘made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty.’ He continued, ‘I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!’ ”
—–
I wonder if he’s thought through that process?
responding to earl, Feb 26 at 3:14 p.m.:
They just did it at MSNBC, where the bloodletting bears eerie echoes of what DOGE is doing to the US government. So yes, it does seem that employers, especially corporate ones, are getting the message that they can (must?) do this too.
Forgive my ignorance here, but why does an appeal of ABJ’s ruling go directly to the Supreme Court? Why isn’t DDC forced to intervene first?
Reason I ask is bc if you remember Jack Smith tried this and was denied, so I’d be awful curious as to why the SC thinks time is of the essence here now all of the sudden. What is the irreparable harm to the US gov’t by letting the lawfully appointed OSC stay in his position when the law clearly states he can only be removed by the president for very specific reasons? Shouldn’t the SC err on the side of the law and stare decesis (I know, I know, but here it’s not just case law, it’s the actual statute that is crystal clear as to Congress’ intent).
My cynical answer (Ianal) is that the SCOTUS is bowing to Trump. Why would they have wanted to accommodate Jack Smith?
It shouldn’t. But I expect that will be the effect of the deferred decision on the stay, which after all DID go through DC Circuit.
The DC Court of Appeals denied it as a TRO is “unripe”, then it went to SCOTUS. Who put it on hold until today.
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I’m editing a comic novel (not mine) now about internal SCOTUS processes. At one point it is revealed that among a certain Associate Justice boys club, “Stare decisis” is the punch line to most of their in-jokes. They laugh uproariously every time they invoke the phrase.
That rang painfully true to me.
That sounds like fun and possibly sad at the same time.
Well at least we now know who the true mastermind behind all these DOGE actions is. Amy Gleason has clearly been controlling Musk to act from her definitely preplanned vacation in Mexico. She’s been so clever that she even fooled government lawyers AND Trump’s own press secretary hours earlier. Leave it to an Obama honoree to be that devious in their leadership that multiple accounts indicate none of musks minions even knew who was pulling his strings when they barged into offices…
/s of course, and can at the very least get the lawyer sanctioned? Sadly press conferences are institutionalized liefests, so no chance there
Gleason is merely the designated patsy du jour who checks all the boxes for official evil in their minds (female, D appointed, out of office). Musk and Convict-1/Krasnov run this show. Just like in the PRC, DPRK or Russia, nothing like this happens without approval of the dictators, so the courtier press needs to point this out.
I see Musk joined the Cabinet meeting today. I wonder how much talking he did.
Dunno and I ain’t gonna watch it. But if you care to subject yourself to the 1 hour 5 minute cabinet meeting to see for yourself, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edRq9PMMlQs
Visually it looked like a low budget, b movie cast.
It appears it was Musk’s show and FWIW he made one pretty glaring admission that he cut Ebola prevention funding by ‘mistake’. Musk also said he corrected that ‘mistake’ immediately (the money is still frozen as far as I know) and he would correct further mistakes ‘promptly’. Sure, Elno.
Convict-1/Krasnov sat there beaming, after asking if anyone objected to Musk being there. Then he told reporters that if anyone objected he’d throw them out of the meeting. No one said boo, not even Alina Habba who was also there.
Even a formal Cabinet meeting was not saved from Elon’s control and I don’t think Gleason was there either. Convict-1/Krasnov then proceeded to spew lots of lies about Ukraine and other topics (Dana Bash covered that).
OT: it appears that the latest polling for Canada’s election now favors the Liberals as Convict-1/Krasnov continues to pick on the Canadians. Tee hee hee, everything Convict-1/Krasnov touches dies.
Off Topic: (but on the broader topic of dismantling government agencies)
West Texas is now reporting its first death caused by measles. Although not an immediate solution, I find comfort knowing that nature has a way of eventually punishing the arrogantly stupid.
Maybe RFK Jr can say a few words at graveside.
They have more than 120 cases, and someone who got measles had been in Austin at various locations, a few days before they got the rash, so it may not be *just* west Texas now.
Unvaccinated kid, hospitalized last week.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/first-measles-death-is-reported-in-the-west-texas-20189089.php
Also it’s mostly (so far) Mennonites who home-school or have private church schools.
Exposures in San Marcos and San Antonio
Except in this case it’s children who are most affected and it was a child who died. Children don’t have any say over whether they get vaccinated.
Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about this. It is absolute shit that children have to die but that is the choice their anti-vax dupable parents made. And I really hope that doctors and hospital staffs make it very clear to those parents that their choice not to vaccinate their child is the direct cause of the child’s death. Put the blame on the parents.
Really showing my age here. Grew up in the UK prior to the measles vaccine being available. Got measles three times (and so-called German measles once), got mumps, got whooping cough (slightly) once. Nasty every time, weeks in bed, isolated, and with mumps, days in pain too. I think getting these damaged my eyesight somewhat, but other than that, no obvious long-term effects, and (obviously) I didn’t die.
I’m not trying to undercut the seriousness of a measles outbreak, or the stupidity of the parents in not using available, effective vaccines; both my kids were vaccinated. But measles used to be a “childhood” disease, and was only occasionally fatal – so far as I am aware. Most of the kids I knew got it at some point, often twice over several years.
There’s a paper here on the US experience (abstract only) –
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6878996/
It’s preventable with vaccines so really the only acceptable loss rate is zero. If one chooses to accept a ‘low death rate’ I’d like to know who should ‘win the lottery’ using that standard from someone who says it’s OK (not including you, JPJ since you’re not anti-vaxx) as a political point.
I suspect we won’t be hearing more stories about this, not because they’re not occurring but because of political censorship. Recall how Convict-1/Krasnov whined that the COVID-19 reporting was hurting his poll numbers and stopped reporting them.
Our school started distributing polio vaccines when I was about 9 or 10. First ones were pricks, but pretty soon sugar cubes with lovely pink tint as the nurse put a dropper of the stuff on the cube and you could see it propagate through. So yeah, totally in favour of vaccines. As an elder, north of the 49th, I get text alerts when the next COVID update comes out, and I haste me to get my shot. Have had six so far, probably another one coming up in the summer. A good site for vaccine and other related info is Michael Simpson’s “Skeptical Raptor.” Easy to find.
I’m and Old, and had measles, chickenpox, and mumps, in that order, with only a year between measles and chickenpox. They were not at all fun.
I don’t know anyone who died from any of those, but it isn’t rare.
I read a west Texas news site, and they aren’t censoring it, because it’s area news.
I forgot about chickenpox, and yeah, I had that one too. My brother had spots on his eyeball (says my Mom).
I got two of the Salk shots and all three of the sugar cubes. I don’t want to bet on my immunity to polio! One of my cousins had it, and was lucky to come out with just one leg damaged.
In 1951, one of my cousins had measles during her pregnancy. The child had badly damaged eyesight and was forever “special.”
Sis-in-law had rubella during her first pregnancy. The kid (now 55!) is hearing-impaired, but otherwise healthy. And very bright.
Vaccines are not just about mortality, measles has a whole raft of morbidities to include sterility, deafness.
john paul jones
February 26, 2025 at 1:55 pm
“Really showing my age”
Also British, also born predating introduction of measles vaccine ie in 1968. (MMR was introduced 1988 as single shot, 1996 as 2 doses)
“Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968, measles was a common infection in the UK with annual notifications between 160,000 and 800,000, peaks every two years, and around 100 deaths annually. Around 80% of the population developed measles in childhood.”
https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/measles/background-information/prevalence/
In 2018, globally
140,000 deaths in 2018, mostly in children under the age of 5.
In 2019 there were 808 confirmed cases of measles, and 5 deaths, in England and Wales.
Also way under-reported is the story about Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor (now full-time conspiracy theorist) – please indulge me if you already know his sordid story:
He developed a single measles vaccine in the mid-90s that was due to come out to the public the same time as the then-new MMR vaccine. So what did he do? He made very public claims that the new MMR vaccine caused autism, so he’s the source of that pernicious and untrue rumor. He did it so that his single measles vaccine could go to the marketplace without competition. He had a study published in Nature magazine, which was later discredited and withdrawn, and he lost his license because of that. But the damage was already done.
RFK Jr. (now HHS cabinet secretary) took Wakefield’s disinformation and ran with it in the early 2000s. To this day, he will not acknowledge that Wakefield was thoroughly discredited. In fact, Wakefield has appeared alongside RFK Jr. at rallies and RFK Jr. still lauds him. Wakefield now regularly appears alongside other anti-vax and health-conspiracy “personalities” in various venues – so he’s got a new racket going these days…
Thanks SB. Appreciate the data, as it fits perfectly with my memories of family, school and neighbourhood. A Brit? Originally, and still (legally) a citizen, but a Cannuck for most of my life.
“…that nature has a way of eventually punishing the arrogantly stupid.”
But these knucklehead think that nature is the perfect way to solve these problems. Herd immunity isn’t effective unless the population reaches a high level of natural inoculation, which takes years/decades if you allow it to occur naturally, and sometimes it never happens. In the mean time, a whole lot of people will die unnecessarily.
Now in KENTUCKY:
https://bsky.app/profile/wordswithsteph.bsky.social/post/3lj4zajcvd22k
February 26, 2025 at 11:05 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/rosyf.bsky.social/post/3lj4zkfihzc2e
February 26, 2025 at 11:11 PM
More people need to read Roald Dahl’s piece about his daughter and measles.
Buying time is important. Cradle to grave all we really have is time. Second, showing sloppiness and cutting corners in downsizing is arbitrary and that real people are losing their jobs without suitable procedures, some of the Trump voters will rethink things while tariffs cause inflation in parallel. They could see their private sector jobs in light of the public sector indifference, and find offense. If they thought the administrative state needed trimming, they might have envisioned it being an orderly process. Handled as things are, with capriciousness noted now in the media, might turn some voters on the edge into embracing a strong Democratic candidate, if given one. Trump’s “mandate” was thin, and what he got that mattered was both Houses of Congress, even if by thin majority. The more buying time runs to 2026 midterms, and a jackass parades a chainsaw at CPAC, the more likely one House of Congress goes Democratic, at which point a real check on Trump games happens. Buying time is very important.
“If they thought the administrative state needed trimming, they might have envisioned it being an orderly process.”.
Meaning:, I thought only other (mostly poor) people’s benefits would be cut.
We need to hope the affected MAGAs create enough of a stink to get the GOP to act in America’s interest.
The GOP will NEVER act in America’s interest. It simply isn’t in their DNA.
Do you really want to paint with that broad a brush after Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger’s work for the House January 6 Committee?
There are Republicans who are conservatives in the old school sense, like Justin Amash; they are not fascists. Unfortunately their party has been subsumed by fascists and mobsters. Amash leaving the Republican Party was an example of that at work.
If we’re going to save this country, there actually must be Republicans in the old school sense who are dedicated to the Constitution and are willing to put it ahead of party identity. They did it before when Republicans took Nixon aside and told him he could quit or be impeached and convicted. They need to work toward this again and be encouraged to do so.
Note to Rayne: I believe Rockygirl was referring to the modern GOP that purged all moderates over the years through primaries, including Liz and Adam. Both of them are banished out of the party along with the rest of the ‘Never-Trumpers’.
However, to Rayne’s point: MAGA isn’t really the GOP of Lincoln or even Reagan or Shrub. Perhaps we do need to split some hairs here in the description to separate the in-power fanatics from the GOP wandering in exile.
@Rugger_9 : February 27, 2025 at 10:56 am
Thanks for this. I was trying to figure out a tactful way to respond to Rayne, but failed.
GOP is doing what they are doing BECAUSE of Nixon, so no one is coming to save them from themselves.
Present day GOP looks a lot like the “Know Nothing” party, and I believe that’s no coincidence. Cheney and Kinzinger, et. al., might do well to form a 3rd party to oppose these MAGA chowder heads that have consumed GOP. Precisely in the way the GOP formed in the first place.
In fact, Trump’s claim about McConnell’s polio, “I don’t know that he had polio” is quite consistent with the Know Nothing party. Cabinet members (I think Rubio) are even echoing that kind of statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
“Trump’s claim about McConnell’s polio” isn’t just an example of Know-Nothing-ism across the fascist GOP. It’s another unremarked example of Trump’s dementia.
Rubio has no excuses except that he’s willing to be led by the nose by a dementia-addled convict and his handlers.
Thanks for writing this up, Marcy!
From the Update:
It further sounds she’ll say the Special Counsel is so unique
that the President can only fire him for cause.
This would be very excellent! [fingers crossed]
Chris Geidner has Judge Berman Jacskon’s Order here:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3lj46mpgrws2p
February 26, 2025 at 3:09 PM
TRUMP goes back to SCOTUS on this:
https://bsky.app/profile/stevenmazie.bsky.social/post/3lj4kkynilc2l
February 26, 2025 at 6:43 PM
They should tell him NO in very strong terms.
Also point out that investigations and trials are the usual result of breaking laws, and his existing history of crimes does not suggest that he should be immune.
OT: “Bezos said Wednesday that the newspaper’s opinions section would now be focused on ‘personal liberties and free markets’ and won’t publish anything that opposes those ideas. With the shift, opinions editor David Shipley has resigned, and The Post is searching for a successor.”
Well, “What a revolting development this is!”
New motto for WaPo: “Democracy Died. Get Over It!”
I want to repeat a point I made yesterday in the hopes that someone involved in these lawsuits (or otherwise) can follow up.
Someone needs to find the DOGE employees who resigned and get sworn statements from them about everything that has been going on. There is no substitute for this kind of information.
Reporters should be seeking them out – which would be beneficial – and help tell the public the story, but at the end of the day we need sworn statements.
When it became clear to me that city administrators were not going to act ethically or lawfully (in regard to special treatment of white supremacist militia members who were harassing staff and customers), but before I was demoted, I sought federal assistance.
An investigator came down and took statements from several willing witnesses, in a private location away from the branch. This eventually led to mandated training for 300+ employees (including supervisors) and also effected a policy change.
However, I still had to go through a civil service board hearing, and subsequently had to go to court to try to reverse the demotion. I lost in court but still managed to secure a settlement and have the demotion reversed shortly afterward.
While I was never privy to the statements from the federal investigation, I believe they may have played a significant role in why a settlement occurred even though I lost in court. Had that not happened, I was going to appeal and also file a second related suit for retaliation.
So, I agree with you, Amicus12. It would be smart to get those statements you recommend.
New, but related:
https://bsky.app/profile/juddlegum.bsky.social/post/3lj3yhra5y22q
February 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
I’d start with step 1: fire President Musk and all his minions. Step 2 is firing The Felon Guy’s appointees, including Vought.
Putin’s puppets for his complete takeover of the US.
These lawsuits are good. Rebellion is conservative. Assert and defend the statute right to civil service protection. That is current law, the sheltering sky. These lawsuits are very good because in defense of the law in every dimension there are points of contact to what we can control, though enforcement is difficult, and executive prerogative, so there is pre-existing agency within constitutional structure. The first response to fascist takeover is to impeach it in every legal venue.
Musk/Trump must be impeded in replacing the federal government with fascist cadres. Facticity is our givenness: the things we have no control over, the facts of the world, so there is hiring and firing, but their program is bigger, to transform the government into a fascist instrument. Elon’s email functions also like a kind of terrifying propaganda that changes the world for federal workers. Because of the fear it invokes, Elon’s email has made the federal government into more of a fascist instrument today than it was yesterday. It threatens the livelihoods of all civil servants in a cruel and arbitrary way, and I believe the stupidity and the arbitrariness are essential to Musk/Trump’s intention. Because elimination is arbitrary, keeping your nose down isn’t enough. Maybe there is a path to safety with a Trump portrait behind you in your Zoom meeting with Elon’s boys. Your own face must be a mask. If elimination is arbitrary, you must appear to be a true believer. Purge is the word for this, where the point isn’t who you got rid of but the power it expresses over everybody else.
Another proposed amicus, [Catholic U of America], name checking Antonin Scalia, wants into the case, to argue for immediate dismissal of Adams case.
https://x.com/innercitypress/status/1894857659955736971
Some big number of “probationary” employees are not new hires.
“A probationary employee is often a recent hire to the agency or a long-serving employee who was moved or promoted into a new position”
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/15/nx-s1-5298182/trumps-probationary-workers-federal
Ergo all of the firings were a destructive reduction in force.
I have been watching for this issue. The number of new hires seemed too high to me. I hope someone starts looking into how long on average these people have been working for the government. I think it screws the perception of what a probationary worker is. and if, as I suspect ,many of these employees are long term workers that brings in new questions. I represented a class of “temporary”private sector workers who couldn’t make it to 2 years because of layoffs. Many were employed as temporary employees for decades but always had a break in service before they could make the 2 years to become permanent. Coincidently they were predominantly black and brown.
A lot of them were close to the end of their one-year probation period and had excellent reviews.
(The place where I worked had had long-term temps from agencies, but they changed that policy late in 2003. After that, you could work for a year, but after that it was be picked up as a direct contract (with most of the benefits of a regular employee, but you were still year-to-year) or find a job elsewhere. Hard on people who had years of experience *as contractors* and knew their jobs better than replacements.)
It’s all about finding and removing all minorities.
And replacing with white magas
When a federal employee changes jobs, they are in a probationary status. With both a generational shift underway as Boomers retire, Gen X are fewer in number and Millennials move to fill gaps. For starters. That doesn’t include the increased number of new hire at IRS intended to go after higher income taxpayers who’ve disproportionately avoided auditing.
1: What Rayne said! The number of federal employees with 0, 1, 2, … 45 years of service is not in a stable distribution akin to a stable age distribution. There is a demographic bulge of boomers retiring the past few years and the next few years, so a smaller bulge of recent hires replacing those recent retirements (with musical chairs of entry level hires to mid level to senior). And, BIL/IRA funded 2-5 year positions in many agencies and the IRA funded boost in IRS agents are another bulge in employees with less than 1 year on the job.
2: The math is a bit different than you think. Some federal employees have 40 year careers: ~2.5% of them need to be replaced each year. But some only stay 20 years, so ~5% of them are new each year. There are a lot of federal employees with only 3-5 year careers, park rangers and BLM FS NPS FWS biotechs, etc., and 20-30% of them are new each year. Given that heterogeneity in job types and durations, 8-12% new each year is about right, even without those additional bulges.
3: There are 2 forms of “probation” on an sf-50 “notice of personnel action”. The one that definitely matters for being easier to fire for behavior or performance is box 24 “performance”, which has 4 possible values {none, conditional, permanent, indefinite}. Career positions are conditional for the first year (in some cases 2 years), then become permanent. Conditional is conditional on no egregious bad behavior and satisfactory performance. “None” and “indefinite” are rarer and apply to term positions. Once one attains “permanent” status in that box, taking a new position does not change that status, only some sustained gap in federal employment can do that. If you take another position, usually as a promotion, box 45 “remarks” in the sf-50 for that promotion or change in position notes that you are “probationary” for one year. It is not at all clear whether that latter permanent but probationary status makes you easier to fire for cause. Even within the same agency, different regions treated that in different ways, some including recent promotions in their list of probationary employees to terminate while others only included the box 24 conditionals. As far as I know, OPM never clarified that point.
4: I could be wrong, but this doesn’t appear to be replacing minorities with MAGAs. At least for now none of these positions can be re-filled. Anyone taking the deferred resignation also cannot have their position filled next year: the agency gets those salaries subtracted from their FY26 budgets and those positions supposedly disappear from the org charts. And, the law on RIF is clear: those positions must completely disappear, not be filled by new hires or even promotions from within. Finally, unlike under previous R administrations, this doesn’t appear to be about replacing federal staff with contractors. Rather, agencies seem to be under at least as much pressure to terminate contracts and agreements ASAP, thus eliminating contractor staff. Payments for work already performed are still mostly frozen, causing huge cash flow issues for smaller entities who have already paid their contractor staff and need to be reimbursed for those invoices.
Thanks for this info. It makes sense. I will still keep watching!
The public-worker union contracts I encountered in my career typically had a “right to return” for probationary employees who had simply transferred or been promoted. While this causes its own chaotic ripple effect, I am surprised such a right apparently does not exist in the federal system. If it did, a lot of long-time workers would be breathing easier right now.
“A probationary employee is often a recent hire to the agency or a long-serving employee who was moved or promoted into a new position”.
As to the latter two groups of those three, what is the purpose of this rule? What are its benefits to the employer? And, does simply getting promoted, put your career more at risk?
Judge Ali’s order to release the appropriated funding is on hold. *Fuck* Roberts.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/trump-administration-cutting-90-of-usaid-foreign-20190354.php
Apologies if I have posted this before. A nonpartisan group called the Election Truth Alliance–or ETA–just wrapped up an independent investigation of voting data from Clark County (Las Vegas & Environs — very blue).
Nathan Taylor, Executive Director of the Election Truth Alliance spoke with Roland Martin (2-19-2025) about the disturbing discovery. They found some unusual patterns that they say could point to “potential vote manipulation.”
The corruption is so-o-o-o-o deep.
https://youtu.be/6G8fu50VRXo
Screen name checks out.
Thanks for that video. Nathan Taylor is very well spoken and convincing. It sounds like we all could benefit by implementing the change he recommends in the way audits are conducted.
This also reminds me of what commenter, bevbuddy, has mentioned a while back. It seems like tabulators are vulnerable and should be correlated to mapping data.
Yes, that’s pretty much ETA’s criticism of some of the current Risk Limiting Audit processes, which are as varied as the number of states (46) that use them. They aren’t designed well and there is no uniformity across all those jurisdictions, and their execution of the audits varies as well, from great to miserable.
Taylor has been in touch with Palast, according to Taylor. I trust Palast and would like to hear his take. He recently published his work on this cycle’s voter suppression scandals, and when he did publish it he was not aware of this, I assume. It’s all come together in just 3 months. They were smart to concentrate their focused report on Vegas and Washoe. The did some meta Maps and Distributions stuff too, and that helps getting buy in from the rest of the country.
I hope the guys know what they’re in for. And I hope they have good security, for both themselves and their data.
From Steve VLADECK…NOT behind a paywall today because
“for reasons that will become obvious, I wanted today’s installment to be available to all.”
Bonus 126: [Chill] All the Lawyers
Lawyers and law firms committed to the rule of law should be the first (and loudest) critics of the Trump administration’s effort to punish and intimidate those who represent the “wrong” clients. https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-126-chill-all-the-lawyers Steve Vladeck Feb 27, 2025
I lost a comment here, but, in summary, read Steve Vladeck today:
Bonus 126: [Chill] All the Lawyers
Lawyers and law firms committed to the rule of law should be the first (and loudest) critics of the Trump administration’s effort to punish and intimidate those who represent the “wrong” clients. https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-126-chill-all-the-lawyers Steve Vladeck, 2/27/25
Not seeing an update to Marcy’s post, I’m posting the ABJ order that followed yesterday’s Dellinger hearing:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69624836/27/dellinger-v-bessent/
She’s extending the TRO till Saturday, to give herself time to formulate a ruling. That contrasts with the 2/26 deadline in the SCOTUS deferral of appeal to the original TRO, which sets up an imaginary MAGA twilight zone that the Acting Solicitor General brought to the attention of the Clerk of SCOTUS last night:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A790/348789/20250226181021604_Letter%2024A790.pdf
Also weird is the number of Harrises in this convoluted mess, none of whom is the former VP!
Anyway, Saturday looks like an eventful day.
{Handslap to forehead}
I just saw Marcy’s update in the middle of the original post. I was looking at the bottom where (at least to my recollection) updates usually occur.
And it seems Marcy was accurately (of course) predicting the ABJ order that I linked to above.
Apologies, once again, Marcy.
And here’s Dellinger’s response to the govt’s weird letter:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A790/348805/20250227074456882_Dellinger%20-%20Letter%20to%20SCOTUS.pdf
“That said, the government’s attempt to raise these issues for the first time in this posture—and to object to a different TRO issued by a different judge in a different case—is a distraction. Had the government consulted with Special Counsel Dellinger before filing its letter (which it did not do), the government would have known that the Special Counsel does not object to its request to hold the application in abeyance for three additional days, which is the proper course of action.
I would appreciate it if you could circulate this letter to the Members of the Court.
Sincerely
Joshua Matz”
The “different case” that the govt brought up in their letter to the Clerk was the separate Dellinger suit, in his OSC capacity, that concerned the Merit Systems Protection Board and the firing of 6 probationary federal employees, that wasn’t referenced in the ABJ proceedings at all. That was the “Twilight Zone” shit I was referring to above.
And the more I look at that paragraph by Matz, it’s a takedown of Olympic proportions. It’s for the books. And it’s in memo form, on the desks (if the Clerk does their job) of all nine Justices: “This is the crew some of you are willing to consider competent and trustworthy, to manage the affairs of the United States?”, it screams.
The the passage says, essentially, “If the government had only called us we could have told him how these things work!”
The Dems would be smart to pick this up and run with it.
Action last night on DELLINGER case:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3ljebqxclg224
March 1, 2025 at 8:26 PM
And here’s Marc Elias, Democracy Docket re this:
https://bsky.app/profile/marcelias.bsky.social/post/3ljecyljhr22h
March 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Links to
Washington, D.C. Special Counsel Unlawful Dismissal Challenge
Dellinger v. Bessent Filed: February 10, 2025