Supreme Court blocks judge who ordered Trump to rehire fired probationary employees

The Supreme Court pushed back Tuesday on another Democratic-appointed judge who had leaped to block one of President Trump’s policies, ruling that the lower court used iffy evidence to halt the administration’s mass firing of probationary employees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, a Clinton appointee, had ordered the administration to bring back thousands of the workers to their same jobs.

The high court said the labor unions that sued to stop the firings hadn’t done enough to prove they had legal standing to bring the case.

“The district court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the justices said in an unsigned order.

The ruling is the latest succor the Supreme Court has offered Mr. Trump, a day after the justices erased a ruling that had blocked him from carrying out emergency deportations and delaying another that ordered him to bring back a gang suspect who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Late last week, the justices blocked a lower court decision that ordered the administration to pay out tens of millions of dollars in education grants that the president had tried to put on hold.

None of the rulings has been a total victory for the president.

However, in each case, they blunted aggressive anti-Trump rulings by Democratic-appointed judges and gave the administration more room to carry out the president’s plans.

Legal scholars say the rulings are becoming a pattern.

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote after the deportation ruling that the court “seems willing to hide behind less-than-obvious legal artifices to make it harder for federal courts to actually restrain conduct by the current administration that everyone believes to be unlawful.”

Tuesday’s case stemmed from Mr. Trump’s plans to cut the federal workforce by axing some of its probationary employees. The workers have been in their jobs for less than a year or two and have fewer civil service protections.

Judge Alsup said the Office of Personnel Management lacked the authority to direct such action and that the firings were illegal.

He ordered the rehiring of employees at six agencies. When the government brought them back but left them on paid administrative leave, Judge Alsup said that wasn’t enough.

He ordered that the workers be restored to their old jobs, even though Justice Department attorneys said that meant offering new training, orientation and security precautions for employees whom the government believes will eventually be terminated.

Tuesday’s high court ruling puts Judge Alsup’s orders on hold while arguments continue in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The action doesn’t mean all the employees can be fired again. Some are still protected by an injunction issued by an Obama-appointed federal judge in Maryland.

Labor unions and liberal activist groups that challenged the firings vowed to fight. They said there is “no doubt that thousands of public service employees were unlawfully fired in an effort to cripple federal agencies.”

“Today’s order by the U.S. Supreme Court is deeply disappointing but is only a momentary pause in our efforts to enforce the trial court’s orders and hold the federal government accountable,” the groups said in a joint statement.

The high court’s actions are quickly reverberating through lower courts. Judges are asking for new briefings on immigration and government spending cases to see how the justices’ decisions affect ongoing cases.

The Supreme Court issued several high-profile decisions last year that also benefited Mr. Trump.

In one case, the justices rejected attempts to keep Mr. Trump off presidential primary ballots. In another, they ruled that he had immunity from criminal charges stemming from some of his actions during his first presidential term.

Two more cases involving Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda are pending before the justices.

One deals with the administration’s wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to El Salvador and the government’s refusal to bring him back.

The other concerns lower court blockades on Mr. Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship. The administration says the courts in those instances were wrong to issue universal injunctions halting the president’s policies for everyone involved.

“This situation is intolerable,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices this week as he asked them to curtail aggressive anti-Trump rulings.