Judge pauses Trump federal employee buyout deadline pending court hearing

A lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s offer of buyouts to federal government employees will be heard by a judge Thursday afternoon — hours before the deadline to accept the offer.

The hearing comes as more than 40,000 people — about 2% of the federal workforce — have accepted the offer.

The Trump administration confirmed Thursday in a mass email to federal employees that the deadline for accepting the buyout offer will not be extended beyond 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday.

But the hearing in Massachusetts federal court could end with that deadline being extended by a judge, who also might agree to block the offer altogether as he considers a challenge to its legality.

The offer, laid out in the so-called “Fork Directive,” purports to allow employees to submit a deferred resignation, in which they will no longer have to work but will be paid with benefits until the end of September.

A group of unions representing federal workers on Tuesday sued over the program.

The lawsuit says “basic information is absent” from the offer, including whether the Office of Personnel Management “can (or will) honor the financial commitment for agencies across government when Congress has appropriated no funds for this purpose, and the statutory basis and appropriation for this promise remain unclear.”

The offer is “also contrary to the law,” the suit alleges.

“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the suit says.

The plaintiffs are asking a judge to declare that the offer “as issued” is not legal, and remand the directive back to OPM “to provide a reasoned basis for the Directive and extend the deadline accordingly, and until such time as Defendants provide an adequate justification for the Directive.”

This is developing news. Check back for updates.