President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday quickly reversed a surprise wave of mass firings carried out at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) the day before.
In a bench ruling and subsequent minute order, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, expressed doubts the government had complied with a preliminary injunction entered by the court last month and largely upheld on appeal last week.
In the underlying case, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) alleges the Trump administration — specifically Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought — unlawfully fired CFPB employees without cause and scrubbed CFPB data from its records, including important CFPB contracts that are “necessary for cybersecurity.”
On Thursday afternoon, the government sent a reduction-in-force (RIF) memorandum to between 1,400 and 1,500 employees, eliminating roughly 90% of the agency’s workforce.
“I am deeply concerned given the scope and speed of the agency’s action… about whether the agency is now in compliance with the preliminary injunction,” Jackson said, according to a courtroom report by CNBC.
The RIF in question would have sent agency personnel packing for good on June 16, cutting off access to government computer systems and the like almost immediately.
“Please be advised that you will retain access to work systems, including email and internal platforms until 6:00 PM Eastern Time, on April 18, 2025,” the layoff notice reads. “After that time system access will be discontinued, and you will be placed in an administrative leave status through your official separation date as outlined above.”
More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Modicum of process is mandated by the Constitution’: Judge blocks summary deportations, reminds Trump admin ‘all nine’ Supreme Court justices ruled against the government
The injunction contained eight specific provisions; the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals recently stayed three of those provisions while clarifying and limiting the reach of those stays.
Friday’s hearing concerned the fourth provision of the injunction — left undisturbed by the three-judge panel — which barred the government from issuing a broadly worded work-stoppage order.
The plaintiffs also complained the government went “well beyond” the third provision of the injunction — which the appellate court limitedly stayed “insofar as it prohibits defendants from terminating or issuing a notice of reduction in force to employees whom defendants have determined, after a particularized assessment, to be unnecessary to the performance of defendants’ statutory duties.”
In other words, the lower court believes the government can only issue a RIF based on specific determinations that any given employee is superfluous to the CFPB’s duties under federal law.
On Friday, Jackson suggested the speed with which so many employees were fired means those particularized assessments did not occur and the RIF was, rather, a way to achieve a work stoppage that was seemingly prohibited by both courts reviewing the case.
And the judge was not having it.
As for the 6 p.m. shut-off of email and systems access, Jackson said it “is not happening today,” according to a courtroom report by Chris Geidner, who blogs at LawDork.
The broader RIF was also paused.
“I am not going to let the RIF go forward,” the judge reportedly told Department of Justice lawyers.
A flurry of declarations were filed on the federal docket in response to the Thursday firing notice — and in anticipation of the Friday hearing — but the judge said there was much more to learn about the justification for the RIF and how the decision was made.
“A factual record needs to be developed,” Jackson said.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
The court cautioned the government that her bench ruling was authoritative but said she would eventually enter a written order.
“It’s not going to happen in the meantime,” Jackson told the government in response to the RIF and the lag between her oral order and the forthcoming order formalizing her ruling.
