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The Trump administration has quietly clarified a directive that prompted the fire of tens of thousands of government employees as holidays planted chaos across the country.
The mass came in the form of a brief update for a memorandum circulated for the first time a few hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, asking government departments to compile a list of staff that had been employed for less than a year and justify their holding. Since May last year, this included at least 200,000 federal workers.
Memory from the Personnel Management Office, or OPM, which has become a main tool for a billionaire Trump Ally Elon Musk, lowering costs, was interpreted by many agencies as a directive to leave the test workers free, resulting in at least 20,000 vacations.
Those fired in recent weeks include civil staff in the Department of Defense, employees working in veterans’ affairs and workers responsible for maintaining America’s nuclear reserves.
An addition to the memorandum appeared on Tuesday, saying “Please note that, with this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance -based action regarding proof staff”. OPM added that individual agencies had “responsibility for such staff actions”.
The office refused to comment on the change. A person acquainted with the OPM decision said he had always been about agencies to determine if he would turn on employees, and the modification was intended as an explanation “in the light of a recent judicial order and some public misinformation”.
The new message came after a federal judge last week banned the OPM from shooting probation workers in separate government departments, explaining that the office “has no authority under any statute in the history of the universe to employ and fire employees at another agency.”
Judge William Alsup said there was a “test mountain” that Memorandum OPM was taken as a directive, not just instructions.
Alsup also reiterated that “the constant, massive conclusion of probation workers across all federal government agencies has planted important chaos.”
He mentioned the completion of more than 1,000 employees in the Department of Affraires of Veterans who “mutilated the administration of the Veterans Crisis Line Agency”, which provides urgent assistance to those who think suicide or self-harm.
While Alsup did not order agencies to restore those who had already been fired, some departments have already begun to do so. Some test workers left the National Science Foundation last month began to regenerate on Monday, the agency said in a statement.
The US government was also forced last month to reopen employees in the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The editing of the memorandum took place a few hours before Trump was planned to give Congress its union state. Many Democrats have said they will bring federal workers who have been fired at the event.
