A federal judge restored President Donald Trump’s deferred resignation program for federal workers in a decision Wednesday.
The deferred resignation program, also known as the administration’s “fork in the road” offer, asked government workers to stay or leave after Trump required them to return to their offices shortly after his inauguration. The legal group Democracy Forward had filed a lawsuit over the program on behalf of labor unions that represent thousands of employees.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole of Massachusetts made the ruling in favor of the White House Wednesday evening. In his decision, he wrote that the plaintiffs in the case “are not directly impacted by the directive” and denied their case on that basis.
“[T]hey allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects including a diversion of resources to answer members’ questions about the directive, a potential loss of membership, and possible reputational harm,” O’Toole wrote.
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“The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient.”
Additionally, the judge wrote that his court “lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ pleaded claims,” noting similar cases where courts were found to have lacked authority.
“Aggrieved employees can bring claims through the administrative process,” O’Toole said. “That the unions themselves may be foreclosed from this administrative process does not mean that adequate judicial review is lacking.”
In a statement to Fox News, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the decision “the first of many legal wins for the President.”
“The court dissolved the injunction due to a lack of standing,” Leavitt said. “This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities.”
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The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) began emailing more than 2 million federal civilian employees offering them buyouts to leave their jobs shortly after Trump’s inauguration. The offers quickly outraged labor leaders, and the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) called the offers “shady,” claiming the deals “should not be taken seriously.”
“The offer is not bound by existing law or policy, nor is it funded by Congress,” NFFE National President Randy Erwin said. “There is nothing to hold OPM or the White House accountable to the terms of their agreement.
“Federal employees will not give in to this shady tactic pressuring them to quit. Civil servants care way too much about their jobs, their agency missions and their country to be swayed by this phony ploy. To all federal employees: Do not resign.”
Republican attorneys general previously signaled support for Trump’s program, writing in an amicus curiae brief Sunday that a challenge to the constitutionality of the order “would inevitably fail.”
“Courts should refrain from intruding into the President’s well-settled Article II authority to supervise and manage the federal workforce,” the filing said. “Plaintiffs seek to inject this Court into federal workforce decisions made by the President and his team. The Court can avoid raising any separation of powers concerns by denying Plaintiffs’ relief and allowing the President and his team to manage the federal workforce.”
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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