Government officials are warning that the “mass firings” promised by President Donald Trump amid the government shutdown could open the administration up to lawsuits, according to The Washington Post reporting.
Trump has signaled that he wants so-called “Democrat Agencies” to be cut with the help of his budget goon, Project 2025 architect Russell Vought.
However, according to The Washington Post’s anonymous sources, officials are cautioning agencies against initiating government layoffs during a shutdown, which the White House insists is necessary despite no stated benefit or precedent, saying they could violate the Antideficiency Act.
The Antideficiency Act forbids the government from incurring new expenses during a shutdown, when government funding has lapsed. The severance payments due to laid off federal workers would qualify as new government expenses.
Labor unions have already sued Vought, asking a court to declare the layoff threats illegal and invalidate any layoffs issued during the shutdown.
“Nothing in the Antideficiency Act or any other statute authorizes RIFs (”Reductions in Force”) of employees who work in agencies or programs with a lapse in funding,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, the Act expressly provides that all employees who are not paid during a shutdown—whether furloughed or excepted—must receive back pay for that time period once funding is reinstated.”
Federal regulations regarding RIFs dictates that an employee can be laid off due to several factors including lack of funds, lack of work, agency reorganization, and transfer of function or position abolishment. There is no precedent for RIFs going into effect due to congressional inability to agree to on how to fund the government.
Furthermore, the government requires that federal employees receive a 60-day notice before being laid off. There is no timetable on the length of the shutdown, and it is possible the government will reopen well before potentially laid off workers actually leave their positions.
“I just can’t see how [the government] tomorrow spits out notices saying you’re fired because of no funding, and then [hypothetically] on Friday, we have funding again,” Debra D’Agostino, founding partner of Federal Practice Group, told The Washington Post.
The government already went through an intense gutting process as a result of DOGE’s chaotic partnership with the White House. The administration began begging some employees fired by the “Department of Government Efficiency” to return in late September.
Vought clashed with Elon Musk and DOGE early in the administration, believing Musk’s cutting plan undercut his own.
However, should Trump’s RIFs go into effect, they may again not yield the sort of government expulsion of Democrats dreamed of by Trump and Vought due to the legal hurdles.
The post Government Officials Break With Trump on ‘Mass Firing’ Plans appeared first on The Daily Beast.
