A federal judge in Boston on Thursday paused nationwide the Trump administration’s offer of buyouts to federal employees, less than 11 hours before the deadline for workers to accept the deal.
Judge George O’Toole Jr., said his injunction pausing the plan would continue until at least a court hearing Monday, when he will consider arguments by employee unions challenging the legality of the buyout, and by a lawyer for the Trump administration defending the plan.
O’Toole’s order Thursday came at a brief hearing, and as more than 60,000 people — about 3% of the federal workforce — have accepted the offer.
He said federal agencies must notify employees who received the buyout offer that the program has been enjoined until Monday.
“I make no assessment at this stage of the merits of the claims,” O’Toole said during Thursday’s hearing.
The Trump administration earlier Thursday in a mass email to federal employees said that the deadline for accepting the buyout offer would not be extended beyond 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday.
An Office of Personnel Management spokesperson told NBC News that the agency interprets O’Toole’s order as allowing federal agencies to continue processing resignations. The spokesperson said that if an employee has already accepted a deferred resignation package and their agency allows it, they can begin their paid leave.
The buyout offer, laid out in the so-called Fork Directive, purports to allow employees to submit a deferred resignation, in which they will no longer have to work but will be paid with benefits until the end of September.
O’Toole’s order Thursday is the latest in a series of judicial rulings pausing implementation of key policy initiatives of President Donald Trump.
Trump and Elon Musk, his head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, have promoted the buyouts as part of their efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, which is the largest employer in the United States.
In a statement after O’Toole issued his order, the CEO of Democracy Forward, the advocacy group representing the unions challenging the buyout, said, “Civil service members deserve more than one-sided ultimatums and misleading schemes. We are grateful for the court’s ruling today, pausing Trump’s unlawful ultimatums and protecting our federal employees.”
“The vast majority — more than 90% — of Americans believe that government employees should be hired and promoted based on merit, not political loyalty,” said Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman.
“Yet, President Trump and his unelected associates are threatening that value and our hardworking, dedicated, and independent civil servants—individuals who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the American people.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News, “We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
Leavitt’s comment expressing appreciation for the judge’s action came hours after the Department of Justice, acting on behalf of the Trump administration, asked O’Toole to deny the request to extend the deadline.
“Extending that deadline on the expiration date would not just engender confusion and upset expectations, but perhaps more importantly, would disrupt a critical priority of the Executive Branch to reform the federal workforce,” the DOJ said in a court filing.
“The serious harm to the federal government in effectuating these important reformations to the federal workforce far exceeds any claimed harm to the Plaintiffs and strongly cautions against the imposition of a temporary restraining order or an administrative stay,” the DOJ said.
On Tuesday, a quartet of unions representing federal workers sued the Office of Personnel Management over the program.
The lawsuit says “basic information is absent” from the offer, including whether OPM “can (or will) honor the financial commitment for agencies across government when Congress has appropriated no funds for this purpose, and the statutory basis and appropriation for this promise remain unclear.”
The offer is “also contrary to the law,” the suit alleges.
“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the suit says.
The plaintiffs asked O’Toole to declare that the offer “as issued” is not legal, and remand the directive back to OPM “to provide a reasoned basis for the Directive and extend the deadline accordingly, and until such time as Defendants provide an adequate justification for the Directive.”