Jonathan Turley Calls Federal Judge’s Halt On Trump Admin’s Review Of Probationary Workers ‘Quite A Reach’

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Thursday on Fox News that the federal judge’s ruling on the Trump administration’s review of probationary workers was “quite a reach.”

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled Thursday that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will need to rescind their directives of initiating firings of federal probationary workers, saying the office does not hold “authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency.” On “The Ingraham Angle,” Fox host Laura Ingraham read Alsup’s ruling to Turley and asked for his legal take.

“I think that’s quite a reach for this judge, because the office was not firing these workers. It was directing agencies to look at these workers and fire them according to guidelines. They are part of a unitary department, an executive branch that is headed by a president who has said that he wants this to happen,” Turley said.

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“So I think that the court may be slicing this a little too thin because the Trump Administration is saying that order was for agencies themselves to make these decisions, review these positions, and they also said, ‘It is clear, we want to downsize the federal government, and the exception is that many, if not most of these people, will not be maintained.’ The president of the United States is allowed to run the executive branch, including running it with fewer people than his predecessor,” Turley said.

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