Did Donald Trump have a face to face meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts or was it a telephone call? Either way Trump was apparently told he does not have absolute power over everything.
The consequence was Trump administration reinstated thousands of probationary federal workers. The Trump administration is making the move after several court orders ruled that the firings were not legal.
The decision reinstates at least 24,500 recently fired probationary workers following a pair of orders from federal judges last week that found the terminations pushed by President Donald Trump were illegal.
The reinstatements, spanning 18 departments, are outlined in a filing Monday by the Department of Justice in federal court in Maryland after a judge asked for a report on efforts to reinstate the employees.
The separate declarations from Trump officials within each of the departments offer the most detailed public account yet of the administration’s firing of recently hired or promoted probationary workers as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s push to drastically cut the federal workforce.
Here are the tallies of recently fired probationary workers, by department, the Trump administration says it is working to reinstate:
- Environmental Protection Agency: 419
- Department of Energy: 555
- Department of Commerce: 791
- Department of Homeland Security: 310
- Department of Transportation: 775
- Department of Education: 65
- Department of Housing and Urban Development: 299
- Department of Interior: 1,710
- Department of Labor: 167
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: 117
- Small Business Administration: 298
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.: 156
- Human Capital and Talen Management: 270
- General Services Administration: 366
- Treasury Department: 7,613 (including 7,315 IRS employees)
- Department of Agriculture: 5,714
- Department of Veterans Affairs: 1,683
- Department of Health and Human Services: 3,248
Conservatives have a 6-3 advantage on the high court and Trump himself nominated three of the current justices. The court has frequently sided with him in major cases, most notably the decision last year to grant former presidents wide immunity from criminal prosecution for their official actions. But in a series of emergency orders since Trump’s return to the White House, the court has preliminarily ruled against him.
At the same time, Trump appeared especially eager to woo Roberts during his joint address to Congress earlier this month.
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