波士顿的一名联邦法官表示，他拒绝了阻止收购因为提起此案的联邦工会没有起诉权，而且地区法院没有复审此案的管辖权。
在20名民主党司法部长的支持下，三个联邦雇员工会在诉讼中称，人事管理办公室延期辞职提议是在“大规模解雇的威胁下”迫使政府工作人员辞职的“非法最后通牒”
根据美国地区法官乔治·a·奥图尔(George A. O'Toole Jr .)的说法，质疑该政策的联邦工会没有受到买断要约的直接影响;相反，他们会受到附带影响，如工会成员减少，并需要回答其成员关于政策的问题。
“工会在《福克指令》中没有必要的直接利益，但却在挑战一项影响其他人，特别是行政部门雇员的政策。这是不够的，”法官写道。
法官还裁定，地区法院缺乏审查纠纷的管辖权，因为联邦服务劳资关系法规规定了法院接管前的行政审查程序。
“根据这一复杂的计划，争议必须首先在雇佣机构和相关的行政审查委员会面前得到行政解决，任何进一步的质疑都必须在上诉法院得到适当的审理，”该命令说。
O'Toole Jr .没有在他的订单中包括任何关于买断期限如何受到影响的解释。
“波士顿收购案的裁决是总统众多法律胜利中的第一个。由于缺乏法律地位，法院撤销了禁令。这表明lawfare最终不会战胜支持特朗普总统及其优先事项的7700万美国人的意愿，”新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特周三表示。
在周一长达一小时的听证会上，司法部的一名律师将推迟辞职提议框定为在唐纳德·特朗普总统颁布全面改革以“重新平衡和重组联邦劳动力”之前，联邦雇员的“人道出口”。
“特朗普总统竞选时承诺改革联邦劳动力，”DOJ律师埃里克·汉密尔顿说，概述了特朗普缩小联邦政府规模的计划和他重返办公室的行政命令。“我们理解这些公告可能会让联邦工作人员中的一些人感到失望。”
汉密尔顿认为，收购的任何进一步拖延都将造成不可挽回的伤害，因为特朗普政府计划在收购窗口关闭后立即实施重塑联邦政府的下一步措施。
代表提出挑战的工会的律师埃琳娜·戈尔茨坦(Elena Goldstein)抨击特朗普政府试图执行一项“史无前例的计划”，设定一个“草率的爆炸期限”
“在过去的两周里，数百万职业公务员陷入了困惑，”戈尔茨坦说。“这是一个规模空前的项目，对OPM决策的合理性提出了质疑。”
收购要约是特朗普通过亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)新成立的政府效率部(Department of Government Efficiency)削减政府规模的努力的一部分，两周前在一封主题为“岔路口”(Fork in the Road)的电子邮件中发出，这也是马斯克在他辞职时使用的语言Twitter裁员2022年接手那家公司后。
人事管理办公室的提议为任何在2月6日之前接受延期辞职的联邦雇员提供全薪和福利，在他们接受协议后没有义务工作。
虽然戈尔茨坦承认特朗普有权缩小联邦政府的规模，但她强调，OPM没有采取任何必要的步骤来实施这样一项全面的举措，包括分析他们的方法的成本和收益，评估其对政府职能的影响，以及评估马斯克的潜在利益冲突。她补充说，对于成千上万名从代理机构获得不一致指导的员工来说，买断的确切条款正在“改变”。
她说，“OPM似乎是在编造故事。”。“当政府想要做出决定时，有很多正确的方法...自从他们实施这个项目以来，这两个星期里没有一件事情发生。”
汉密尔顿为政府辩护，批评原告的论点是“法律上不连贯，与他们的案件理论不一致”，因为进一步推迟收购将“给联邦雇员的生活带来更多的不确定性”。
虽然原告担心收购计划违反了联邦法律，因为它使用了国会从未拨款的资金，但汉密尔顿试图反驳收购改变了政府财政义务的说法。
“自愿辞职不会改变联邦政府的财政义务。它只是改变了员工在受雇期间应该做什么和不应该做什么，”汉密尔顿说。
戈尔茨坦认为，初步禁令是必要的，以防止她所说的重塑联邦政府的非法提议，同时特朗普政府继续“向员工施加额外压力”。
“这是在一个前所未有的时间表上采取的前所未有的行动，”她说。
就在周四员工接受提议的最后期限前几个小时，由比尔·克林顿总统提名的法官奥图尔-暂时阻止了报价直到周一，所以他可以考虑发布一个临时限制提供暂停命令。
法官奥图尔在他的裁决中说:“我命令被告在完成简报和口头辩论之前，不要采取任何行动来执行所谓的‘分叉指令’。”“我相信这就是我今天想去的地方。”
作为回应，特朗普政府“延长”了要约的最后期限，超过6.5万名联邦雇员已经接受了要约。
提起诉讼的工会认为，特朗普的提议超越了他作为总统的权限，他们称之为“草率的辞职计划”。
根据原告的说法，特朗普的提议违反了联邦法律，缺乏国会拨款，也没有向员工保证总统会坚持到底。他们的主张部分依赖于20世纪40年代的一部名为《行政程序法》的联邦法律，该法律规定了联邦机构如何制定和执行规则。
“在技术领域，‘快速行动，打破常规’是一个很好的座右铭，部分原因是他们没有拿公众的钱开玩笑，预计大多数倡议都将失败，”罗耀拉·玛丽蒙特法学教授贾斯汀·莱维特告诉美国广播公司新闻。“国会知道这一点，所以在1946年他们基本上说，‘当机构做事情的时候...他们必须小心谨慎。他们必须考虑问题的各个方面。"
原告还认为，收购是非法的，因为它依赖于国会尚未拨款的资金，违反了反赤字法。
“被告的最后通牒将联邦工作人员分为两组:(1)那些向OPM提交辞呈的人，他们承诺在一段时间内支付工资，但不要求工作;(2)那些没有这样做的人，因此受到大规模解雇的威胁，”诉讼称。
联邦政府的律师反驳了这些说法，他们认为特朗普拥有为联邦部门内的员工提供买断的法律权力，任何进一步的拖延都将弊大于利。
DOJ律师约书亚·e·加德纳(Joshua E. Gardner)上周在一份文件中写道，“在最后一天延长接受延期辞职的最后期限，将明显扰乱联邦工作人员的预期，给一个已经有数十名联邦雇员利用的项目注入巨大的不确定性，并阻碍政府改革联邦工作人员的努力。”。
Judge allows Trump to proceed with federal buyout
A federal judge in Boston said he denied the request toblock the buyoutoffer because the federal unions who brought the case lacked standing to sue and because the District Court lacks jurisdiction to review the case.
Three federal employee unions -- with the support of 20 Democratic attorneys general -- have argued in a lawsuit that the Office of Personnel Management'sdeferred resignation offeris an "unlawful ultimatum" to force the resignation of government workers under the "threat of mass termination."
According to U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr., the federal unions who challenged the policy are not directly impacted by the buyout offer; rather they are subject to collateral impacts such as a reduction in union membership and needing to answer their members' questions about the policy.
"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," the judge wrote.
The judge also determined that the district court lacks jurisdiction to review the dispute because the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute sets out an administrative review process before courts can take over.
"According to this complex scheme, disputes must first be administratively exhausted before the employing agency and the relevant administrative review board and any further challenges are properly heard in a court of appeals," the order said.
O'Toole Jr. did not include any interpretation about how the buyout deadline is impacted in his order.
"This Boston Buyout Ruling is the first of many legal wins for the President. The Court dissolved the injunction due to a lack of standing. This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.
During an hour-long hearing Monday, a lawyer for the Department of Justice framed the deferred resignation offer as a "humane off-ramp" for federal employees before President Donald Trump enacts sweeping changes to "rebalance and reorganize the federal workforce."
"President Trump campaigned on a promise to reform the federal workforce," DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said, outlining Trump's plan to reduce the size of the federal government and his return-to-office executive order. "We understand these announcements may have come as a disappointment for some in the federal workforce."
Hamilton argued that any further delay of the buyout would cause irreparable harm because the Trump administration plans to enact the next steps of reshaping the federal government as soon as the buyout window closes.
Elena Goldstein, a lawyer representing the unions that brought the challenge, hammered the Trump administration for attempting to enforce an "unprecedented program" with a "slapdash exploding deadline"
"For the last two weeks, confusion has rained for millions of career civil servants," Goldstein said. "This is a program of unprecedented magnitude that raises questions about the rationality of OPM's decision-making."
The buyout offer, part of Trump's effort to trim the size of government through billionaire Elon Musk's newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out two weeks ago in an email with the subject line "Fork in the Road" -- the same language Musk used when heslashed jobs at Twitterafter taking over that company in 2022.
The offer from the Office of Personnel Management offered full pay and benefits until September for any federal employee who accepted a deferred resignation by Feb. 6, with no obligation to work after they accepted the agreement.
While Goldstein acknowledged that Trump has the right to downsize the federal government, she emphasized that OPM has not gone through any of the steps necessary to carry out such a sweeping move -- including analyzing the cost and benefits of their approach, evaluating its impact on the government's function, and accessing potential conflicts of interest for Musk. She added that the exact terms of the buyout are "shifting" for thousands of employees who have gotten inconsistent guidance from their agency.
"OPM appears to be making this up as they are going along," she said. "When the government wants to decide, there are ways to do this correctly ... none of that happened here in the two weeks since they enacted this program."
Arguing for the government, Hamilton criticized the plaintiffs' argument as "legally incoherent and at odds with their theory of the case," because a further delay of the buyout would "insert more uncertainty" into the lives of federal employees.
While the plaintiffs raised concerns that the buyout program violates federal law by using money that Congress never appropriated, Hamilton attempted to push back on the claim that the buyout changes the government's financial obligations.
"Nothing about the voluntary resignation changes anything about the federal government's financial obligations. It just changes what employees are expected to do and not do during their period of employment," Hamilton said.
Goldstein argued that a preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent what she said was an unlawful offer to reshape the federal government while the Trump administration continues to "put additional pressure on employees."
"This is an unprecedented action taken on an unprecedented timeline," she said.
Just hours ahead of Thursday's original deadline for employees to accept the offer, Judge O'Toole -- who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton --temporarily blocked the offeruntil Monday so he could consider issuing a temporary restraining offer pausing the order.
"I enjoined the defendants from taking any action to implement the so-called 'Fork Directive' pending the completion of briefing and oral argument on the issues," Judge O'Toole said in his ruling. "I believe that's as far as I want to go today."
The Trump administration, in response, "extended" the deadline for the offer, which more than 65,000 federal employees have already taken.
The unions who brought the lawsuit argued that Trump exceeded his authority as president with the offer, which they described as a "slapdash resignation program."
According to the plaintiffs, Trump's offer violates federal law, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and does not offer employees reassurance that the president would follow through with the offer. Their claim in part relies on a federal law from the 1940s called the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how federal agencies create and enforce rules.
"In the tech universe, 'move fast and break things' is a fine motto in part because they're not playing with the public's money, and it's expected that most initiatives are going to fail," Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Leavitt told ABC News. "Congress knows that, so in 1946 they basically said, 'When agencies do stuff ... they have to be careful about it. They've got to consider all aspects of the problem."
The plaintiffs also argued that the buyout is unlawful because it relies on funding that Congress has yet to appropriate, violating the Antideficiency Act.
"Defendants' ultimatum divides federal workers into two groups: (1) those who submit their resignations to OPM for a promised period of pay without the requirement to work, and (2) those who have not and are therefore subject to threat of mass termination," the lawsuit said.
Lawyers for the federal government have pushed back on those claims, arguing that Trump has the legal authority to provide the buyout for employees within the federal branch, and that any further delay would do more harm than good.
"Extending the deadline for the acceptance of deferred resignation on its very last day will markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the Administration's efforts to reform the federal workforce," DOJ attorney Joshua E. Gardner wrote in a filing last week.
