The independent government agency charged with protecting federal workers’ rights will drop its inquiry into the more than 2,000 complaints that the Trump administration had improperly fired probationary employees, according to emailed notices received by five workers and reviewed by The New York Times.
The agency, the Office of Special Counsel, told affected employees that it had concluded that it could not pursue the claims of unlawful termination in part because they were fired not for individual cause, but en masse as part of President Trump’s “governmentwide effort to reduce the federal service.”
The decision effectively eliminates one of the few avenues government employees had to challenge their terminations. It comes as Mr. Trump has forced out the office’s leader and replaced him for now with a loyal member of his cabinet, Doug Collins, the secretary of veterans affairs.
The office is charged with protecting whistle-blowers from retaliation, which is the reason for its independent status and a Senate-confirmed leader. But it also scrutinizes other employment-related issues, including investigations into claims of prohibited personnel practices, or PPPs, such as discrimination, nepotism or an attempt to coerce political activity.
Reached for comment, the Office of Special Counsel declined to say how many of the more than 2,000 fired probationary employees with pending complaints actually received the notice.
Experts in federal employment law said the justifications to end the investigations were baffling at best.
Nick Bednar, an administrative law expert at the University of Minnesota, said that on one hand, the office argues that it is not moving forward with investigations into whether these probationary employees were removed unlawfully for poor performance because they were fired as a class and not as individuals.
But, he pointed out, the message also said the mass firings were not part of an official government reorganization process known as a reduction in force, which allows for mass firings.
Mr. Bednar said the office appeared to be trying to claim that the firings were done legally another way.
“And I do not know what that third unknown way is,” he said.
The president, sweeping aside many of the government’s internal watchdogs in the days after he took office, had moved quickly to fire the office’s leader, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger challenged his termination, and was temporarily reinstated by a lower court in February — just long enough to begin investigating the avalanche of complaints his office had received about the mass firings of probationary workers.
At the time, he said the decision to fire probationary employees en masse “without individualized cause” appeared “contrary to a reasonable reading of the law.”
But Mr. Dellinger suffered a legal setback in his own employment case, and stopped fighting his removal. Mr. Trump replaced him in an acting capacity with Mr. Collins, who made the decision to drop the investigations.
One probationary employee who was fired from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an agency in the Treasury Department, said this outcome was expected as soon as Mr. Trump installed Mr. Collins.
That employee and others who received the email on Monday spoke with The New York Times on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, as they pursue other challenges to the administration’s first major cut to the federal work force.
Employees from at least four agencies who had pursued claims were notified of the decision in emails that contained nearly identical language, according to messages shared with The Times.
They were among the thousands of employees new to their positions who were fired en masse in February for nonspecific performance issues, even as even as many had received positive reviews from their managers. Federal agencies used a template provided by the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm, to fire their employees.
Several challenges to the firings are making their way through two separate federal courts and another administrative body charged with considering appeals to personnel actions, the Merit Systems Protection Board. The court challenges have led to the reinstatement of thousands of other fired probationary employees, but those decisions were later overturned in appeals, leaving the workers in limbo.
The Trump administration targeted probationary employees for its first major round of job cuts because they have fewer protections than workers who have been in their positions longer.
The email from the Office of Special Counsel said the watchdog “is unable to pursue a claim that your probationary termination” was a prohibited personnel practice. Even if the office could prove the termination was indeed a violation of personnel practices, it cannot investigate whether it was unlawful, the message said.
“This is because your termination, in the context of the governmentwide effort to reduce the federal service through probationary terminations, was more likely effected in accordance with the new administration’s priorities than a decision personal to you,” it said.
Now, the employees’ only avenue to challenge their firings may be one of several class-action lawsuits before the Merit Systems Protection Board. Government lawyers have argued that fired employees cannot bring challenges in Federal District Court because Congress established such independent administrative bodies to handle such matters.
But Mr. Trump also fired the head of the merit systems board, leaving it without a quorum and unable to issue decisions. That leader, Cathy Harris, is fighting her removal, as well, in a case that has gone to the Supreme Court.
With the latest development, one employee with the Environmental Protection Agency who was among the probationary workers fired in February said everything remained unresolved. For now, she is on administrative leave and receiving a government paycheck. But she said it was not clear how long that would last. She said she planned to fight her firing as long as she could, but that the avenues to do so were closing.
Aishvarya Kavi and Madeleine Ngo contributed reporting.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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