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Donald Trump sighs during a press conference.

US President Donald Trump arrives before signing the Laken Riley Act into law in the East Room at the White House in Washington on January 29, 2025 (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images).

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump‘s firings of approximately 5,900 probationary employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who have been booted since he took office in January.

In a stay issued on Wednesday by embattled MSPB member Cathy Harris, who has been fighting for her job herself, the board condemned the terminations as “planned eliminations” and violations of “personnel practice.”

“I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the agency engaged in a prohibited personnel practice,” Harris wrote in the MSPB order, noting how Biden ethics enforcer Hampton Dellinger — who is battling Trump’s Justice Department in federal court over his firing at the Office of Special Counsel — provided findings from an OSC investigation on the USDA removals this week that “reasonably” alleges and outlines personnel violations by the Trump administration.

Harris said the board believed there were “reasonable grounds” to stay the firings for 45 days while MSPB members continue to investigate, on account of there being so many people involved.

“Because there is a possibility that additional individuals, not specifically named in the agency’s response, may be affected by these probationary terminations, and given the assertions made in OSC’s initial stay request and the deference to which we afford OSC in the context of an initial stay request, I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the agency terminated the aforementioned probationary employees in violation of (civil service laws),” Harris explained.

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