A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration and DOGE -Headed Elon Musk from implementing their “Fork in the Road”, federal employee output offer until at least Monday afternoon.
American district judge George O’Toole Jr. put on a Monday afternoon hearing to consider blocking the buyout offer further.
“I filed the defendants from taking any action to implement the so -called ‘fork directive’ pending the end of orientation and oral argument about the problems,” O’Toole said. “I think that’s as far as I want to go today.”
The judge described the short hearing as a “table setting session” just to plan arguments for Monday afternoon. He did not say anything about the benefits of the BUYOUT dispute.
Attorneys for the Ministry of Justice said they would notify any federal employee who is subject to buyout.
More than two million federal employees had been exposed to a midnight deadline to accept the Trump administration’s offer of “postponed resignation” as O’Toole considered an eleventh hour request to block the acquisition from moving forward.
Three unions representing a combined 800,000 federal officials claimed that the offer is illegal, arbitrary and would result in a “dangerous one-two punch” to the federal government.
President Donald Trump participates in the National Prayer Breakfast at Capitol Hill, February 6, 2025, in Washington.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
The judge put on Thursday afternoon’s consultation to consider a request from three federal unions to issue a temporary restriction order that would suspend Thursday’s deadline for buyout and demand to pay federal employees through September 30, 2025, if they retire at. 23.59
“First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress by the articles of association has imposed on the executive for faithful implementation,” the trial said. “And secondly, when vacancies become politicized, as this administration tries to do, partiship is increased over ability and truth, to the detriment of agency missions and the American people.”
The judge’s decision comes as at least 40,000 federal workers – approx. 2% of civil federal workforce – has already accepted the deferred severance offer to leave the federal government since last week, ABC News has reported.
The Three Trade Unions – American Federation of Government -Employees, National Association of Government -Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – claims that Omborned Law on Administrative Procedure by not providing a legal basis for the Buyout offers and lets open The possibility that the government may not follow the acquisition when federal employees agree to resign.
The trial added that Buyout’s promise of payments through September violates the law because the current appropriation for federal agencies expires in March. Furthermore, buyout is unfair because it was made next to a threat of future redundancies, the trial said.
The outbreak offer, part of Elon Musk’s efforts to trim the government’s size through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out under the subject line “Fork in the Road” – the same language Mosque was used when he cut jobs on Twitter after that have taken over this company in 2022.
“To take advantage of employees to accept the offer and resign, the fork directive threatens employees with any loss of jobs in the event that they refuse to resign,” says trade unions’ trial.
Generally, the trial claimed that Oppers rushed the offer with a dubious legal basis, largely mimics Elon Musk’s leadership style after his acquisition of Twitter.
“OM’s rapid adoption of Musk’s private sector program confirms that the agency took very little time to consider the suitability to use an approach used with questionable success in a single pre-profit device to the entire federal workforce,” the trial said.
