Internal Watchdog Ruling Indicates DOGE Mass Public Worker Firings 'Unlawful'

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel—the independent agency that protects government whistleblowers—has deemed "at least some" of the Trump administration's mass firing of civil servants in their probationary periods to be illegal and recommended halting their termination, according to reporting Monday.

Government Executive senior correspondent Eric Katz reported that the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which investigates unlawful actions against federal employees and prosecutes misconduct, issued a decision on the firings of six such workers at different agencies. The terminations are part of a mass purge of federal workers by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE).

"In accordance with its legal responsibility to safeguard the merit system, OSC seeks this stay because the probationary terminations at issue in this matter appear to have been effectuated in a manner inconsistent with federal personnel laws," the agency said.

The request to block the workers' termination and reinstate them came in a class-wide complaint filed by the advocacy group Democracy Forward and Alden Law Group on behalf of the civil servants, who according to the filing were fired "with no regard for the performance or conduct," but rather due to their probationary status.

"While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government," Katz wrote. "It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity."

U.S. Special Counsel Hamilton Dellinger—whose recent termination by Trump was temporarily blocked last week by the Supreme Court—said in a statement Monday that "firing probationary employees without individualized cause appears contrary to a reasonable reading of the law, particularly the provisions establishing rules for reductions in force."

Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said Monday that "today's news from the Office of Special Counsel confirms what we have long known: The mass termination of federal workers is unlawful, and Trump's only plan here seems to be to inflict chaos and suffering on the American people and the federal workers who serve them, as opposed to using our government to better the lives of working Americans, families, and communities across the country."

Some observers have said the specter of termination is a deliberate tactic to instill fear in federal civil servants, upon whom Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said he wishes to inflict "trauma."

The fate of the six federal workers will be decided by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an independent quasi-judicial federal agency tasked with reviewing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), control of which was reportedly seized by DOGE last month.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras last week invalidated Trump's likely unlawful bid to fire Democratic MSPB Chairwoman Cathy Harris.

Responding to Monday's OSC decision, Alden Law Group partner Michelle Bercovici said that "the administration's mass termination of employees in their first or second year on the job is an unprecedented and grossly unfair circumvention of the merit principles upon which our civil service is based."

"These hardworking employees should have the opportunity to let their work speak for itself," Bercovici added.

Rob Shriver, managing director of Democracy Forward's Civil Service Strong program and a former acting OPM director, said Monday: "It's common sense that if you want to remove someone for poor performance, you actually have to look at that person's performance in the job. And if they looked, they'd see the value that these workers bring."

"The mass terminations of probationary employees are flatly illegal and we urge the MSPB to move swiftly to implement this recommendation," Shriver added.