US judge blocks Trump buyout program as 60,000 sign up to quit

Even as the program was stayed, more than 60,000 federal employees have already accepted the buyout offer, a White House source told Reuters.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge George O'Toole in Boston pushes back a midnight deadline set by the Trump administration, which is pressuring federal workers to leave their jobs in an unprecedented drive to overhaul the federal government.

O'Toole could opt to delay the buyout further or block it on a more permanent basis when he next considers the legal challenge by the unions at a hearing on Monday. The White House said employees could submit plans to leave through 11:59 pm. ET Monday.

The buyout effort is part of a far-reaching plan by President Donald Trump and his allies to both rein in and reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy, which Trump blames for stymieing his agenda during his first presidential term.

As part of that effort, the Trump White House is in the midst of a dramatic downscaling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which distributes humanitarian aid around the world.

The administration plans to keep fewer than 300 out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Trump's buyout proposal has upended Washington, sparking street protests and accusations by labor unions and opposition Democrats that the Republican president is violating multiple laws.

Federal employees were asked to indicate they want to take part by typing RESIGN into the subject line of an email from their government accounts.

The offer promises to pay employees' regular salaries and benefits until October without requiring them to work, but that may not be ironclad. Current spending laws expire on March 14 and there is no guarantee that salaries will be funded beyond that point.

The Education Department told staffers that those who accept the buyout could see their paychecks stop at any time, media outlets reported. Labor unions and Democrats have said the offer is not trustworthy.

Some federal employees said they were heartened by Thursday's court ruling.

"It's a glimmer of hope that the courts might help us and block the whole resignation program," said an employee at the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties.

ANOTHER LAWSUIT

Trump has tasked the world's richest person, Elon Musk, to oversee a drastic slashing of the government workforce. As part of that effort, staffers working for Musk have sought access to government personnel files and payment records at a number of agencies, raising privacy and security concerns.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said she and seven other Democratic state attorneys general would sue to stop Musk's quasi-governmental "Department of Government Efficiency" from accessing sensitive data.

"The president does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses," she said in a statement.

The White House says it is following through on Trump's campaign promise to cut wasteful spending and slim down a bureaucracy that many conservatives see as left-leaning and unresponsive to the president's agenda.

60,000 ACCEPT OFFER SO FAR

Some federal workers say they are operating in a climate of fear and uncertainty.

Workers said they were downloading pay and benefit records that they feared could be erased from government computers as they weighed whether to take a buyout deal that might not be honored or stay on with the knowledge they could be fired.

"In the halls most people are stopping to ask one another what their decision will be, with many people saying they are scared because we are caught between two bad choices and very little time to make the decision," said one Treasury Department executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 60,000 or so who plan on accepting the buyout constitute a little more than 2.5% of the 2.3 million federal workforce. It was unclear from which agencies those employees are leaving.

Roughly 6% of federal workers retire or resign in a typical year, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

The administration has told workers they could lose their jobs if they do not accept the buyout. Federal workers say they have been told to brace for dramatic cuts.

"We were told that nothing that is happening is normal and the goal is to reduce the workforce as fast as possible," said an executive at the Internal Revenue Service.

The White House continues to target new categories of workers for potential dismissal.

The Trump administration sent a new memo on Thursday to agency heads across government ordering them to provide by March 7 a list of all employees who received less than a “fully successful” performance rating in the past three years.

The memo said barriers should be eliminated so agencies can “swiftly terminate poor performing employees.”

The White House has also sought to identify workers hired within the last two years, who lack full civil-service protections and would be easier to fire.

And it has also ordered agency officials to identify those appointed by Trump's predecessor, former President Joe Biden, who remain in civil-service jobs, as well as those who have received poor performance ratings.

The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is planning to order the Food and Drug Administration and other health-care agencies to fire thousands of workers. The White House denied the report.