The Trump administration plans to use the shutdown to fire thousands of federal workers, a move that would throw the government into uncharted legal territory.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week encouraged agencies to think of the shutdown as an “opportunity” to fire federal workers, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that it would be targeting “agencies that don’t align with the administration’s values.”
While the government has had numerous shutdowns in recent years, no administration has used the lapse in funding as a method for firing furloughed workers, bringing a new legal issue before the court.
The plan has already prompted one lawsuit from a union representing federal workers.
“The administration has threatened to inflict punishment on, and further traumatize, federal employees throughout the nation,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) wrote in its lawsuit brought alongside several other democracy groups and unions.
“The cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful.”
President Trump has said he sees the shutdown as a window to carry out his vision with less resistance — a claim challenged by the suit.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” he said Tuesday.
It’s not just federal workers who are at risk. The White House has made clear it sees the shutdown as a chance to slash programs and even departments it has otherwise wanted to cut.
“We’re going to look at agencies that don’t align with the administration’s values that we feel are a waste of the taxpayer dollars,” Leavitt said.
The Trump administration has already sought to boot thousands of federal employees, firing workers still in their probationary period before offering widespread buyouts and then later conducting layoffs through reductions in force (RIFs).
The memo from the OMB said agencies should again consider RIFs during the shutdown, but the lawsuits against the administration say they have no legal authority to do so while the government ceases all functions beyond those needed on an emergency basis.
“There’s no federal statutory framework that affords the Trump administration this ability to be able to do the RIFs right now in an emergency shutdown,” said Katie Phang, a senior adviser for Democracy Defenders Fund, which brought the suit alongside the AFGE.
The lawsuit argues that firing federal workers would violate the Antideficiency Act, which bars agencies from spending money beyond what they’ve appropriated. That law, however, doesn’t provide a mechanism for lawsuits, with the groups instead bringing its claims under the Administrative Procedures Act. The act allows for lawsuits against the government when it exceeds its authority and opens the door for the courts to issue a nationwide injunction to block any firings.
During a shutdown, many workers are furloughed and barred from working. These workers go unpaid until the government reopens and they receive back pay.
Some employees, however, are exempted due to the nature of their work — such as those who work in national security fields — and are expected to continue working without pay.
The lawsuit argues work during shutdowns can only be for “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,” not “ongoing, regular functions of government.”
Phang said the OMB is trying to make an end-run around shutdown processes, needing to tap human resources staff to continue working in order to carry out RIFs.
“They’re trying to bootstrap using these HR employees,” she said.
“You’re going to keep employees on just to be able to fire people? But you can’t fire people in reductions in force in the context of an emergency shutdown.”
The OMB has not yet responded to the suit but defended its plans for widespread layoffs as legal.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit instigated at the behest of Congressional Democrats, who are yet again flailing and desperate after shutting the government down,” the agency said in a statement to The Hill.
“As many courts have held, agencies have broad discretion to conduct RIFs. There’s no case here.”
The widespread firings would align with the goals of Project 2025, the nearly 1,000-page memo authored in part by OMB Director Russell Vought.
Republicans have not sought to hide the enthusiasm under which Vought, an advocate for drastically shrinking the workforce, would approach such cuts.
“Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty. Russ Vought has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in empowering — further empowering — Trump,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said during an appearance on Fox News.
“This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”
Democrats previously asked the OMB to turn over its contingency plans for the shutdown, with Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, saying the agency was intentionally “leaving Americans in the dark about how the federal government will operate during a government shutdown.”
“The Trump Administration is weaponizing a temporary government shutdown by threatening to permanently fire thousands of nonpartisan, expert employees who serve the American people every day,” Peters said.
“There is no question that President Trump and Russell Vought will stop at nothing to remove qualified civil servants and embolden their partisan cronies — no matter how that could harm our national security or Americans who are counting on the critical services the federal government provides.”
Trump, who during the campaign sought to distance himself from Project 2025, changed his tune in the lead-up to the shutdown, publicly pointing to Vought and the project ahead of their Thursday meeting.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote on his social media site.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”