President Trump and his administration are getting sued left and right over everything, including a new government email system used to send out Trump’s buyout offer to federal employees.
The federal employees suing claim that this new email system could be compromised to expose their emails, and places of employment within the government, to the outside world.
But the federal judge, appointed by Obama, isn’t buying it, saying they’ve done nothing but argue a “highly attenuated chain of possibilities”. He is refusing to give them the restraining order that they’ve requested.
Here’s more from Fox News:
A federal judge has ruled against federal employees who sued the Trump administration over privacy and security concerns around a government workforce email distribution system.
The new computer server was used to send deferred resignation “Fork in the Road” emails to more than 2 million federal employees, offering them to leave their government jobs and get paid through September, or risk being laid off.
DC-based federal Judge Randolph Moss denied a request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have blocked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from continuing to use the email address [email protected] and is known as the “Government-Wide Email System.”
The lawsuit claimed that in the rush to adopt this new system, OPM violated security safeguards for federal workers, known as a Privacy Impact Statement (PIA).
But in denying emergency legal relief, the judge said, “Plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden of demonstrating that their .gov email addresses (which reveal their names and, possibly, their places of employment) are at imminent risk of exposure outside the United States government— much less that this risk is a result of OPM’s failure to conduct an adequate PIA. Rather, their arguments ‘rel[y] on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities.’”
According to the lawsuit, soon after Trump took office, federal employees received emails from the email address [email protected] that indicated the agency was running tests for a new “distribution and response list.”
“The goal of these tests is to confirm that an email can be sent and replied to by all government employees,” one of the emails said, according to the lawsuit. Workers were asked to acknowledge receipt of the messages.
The case will continue on the merits in the courts, but for now the new communications system will remain in place, pending any appeal.
Two Obama judges in one day not rushing to rule against Trump? It truly is President’s Day for President Trump!