On Thursday, Federal Judge William Alsup told the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to cancel its earlier orders from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that told agencies to “promptly determine” whether certain employees should stay or be fired. The judge didn’t just stop the terminations—he called the entire process illegal and said it should have never happened in the first place. The OPM had sent out a January 20 memo and a February 14 internal email, both pushing agencies to decide the fate of probationary employees. Alsup wasn’t having it. He ordered OPM to notify the Department of Defense that those terminations were invalid—and he wants this done before the planned firings happen. He also ordered a hearing, where acting OPM Director Charles Ezell will have to testify. No date has been set yet. Judge: OPM had no right to order mass firings Alsup made it clear that OPM had no legal authority to force these agencies to fire employees. “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency,” he said. “It can hire its own employees, yes. Can fire them. But it cannot order or direct some other agency to do so.” He also called probationary workers “the lifeblood of our government”—people who enter at lower levels and move up over time. The government, he said, depends on them to keep things running. The lawsuit against DOGE came from unions, including the American Federation of Labor, arguing that Musk’s agency was violating the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by trying to access Labor Department data. Judge John Bates of Washington, D.C., ordered at least one DOGE official to testify and hand over documents, marking the first time someone inside D.O.G.E has been legally forced to answer questions under oath from an outside attorney. Bates called D.O.G.E “opaque”, meaning the agency operates with little transparency. The ruling could reveal how DOGE really functions inside the federal system and what data it has access to. DOGE under fire for secrecy and overreach Bates also approved four depositions with staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Labor Department, and D.O.G.E. The unions pushing the case want proof that D.O.G.E is illegally accessing federal records. The judge ruled that these depositions should be limited to eight hours total, but it’s unclear if the public will ever see them. The unions that filed the lawsuit are seeking to block DOGE from accessing Labor Department data, arguing that access to such sensitive information systems would violate the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Another case against DOGE, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, argues that the agency is dodging federal transparency laws. This group, which focuses on protecting the environment, says the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has refused to release information on D.O.G.E’s actions, despite Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules requiring federal agencies to disclose records upon request. D.O.G.E has faced over 20 lawsuits , but this is the first one focused entirely on transparency laws. The Center for Biological Diversity suit claims that because DOGE is deliberately moving quickly to cut government funding and staff, and its efforts will have effects on the environment (the Environmental Protection Agency has said D.O.G.E helped it make significant cuts, for instance), it’s urgent to uncover more details about how D.O.G.E operates. The FOIA lawsuit argues that the government should not be allowed to make drastic staffing cuts in secrecy. “FOIA was designed to ensure that monumental and consequential undertakings such as this could not take place without transparency,” the lawsuit says. It also warns that D.O.G.E’s staffing cuts could “harm, undermine, or negate” federal climate protections, land management, and public health regulations. Government argues it was just ‘guidance’ There was a major dispute over whether OPM’s mid-February calls to agencies were actual orders or just “requests”. Alsup wasn’t convinced. He pointed out that when something happens at the same time across multiple agencies, it sounds more like an order than mere “guidance.” “Something aberrational happens, not just in one agency, but all across the government, in many agencies on the same day, the same thing,” Alsup said. “Doesn’t that sound like to you that somebody ordered it to happen, as opposed to, ‘Oh, we just got guidance’?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland, the government’s lawyer, disagreed. “An order is not usually phrased as a request,” she argued. “Asking is not ordering to do something.” She suggested that impacted employees should take their cases to the Office of Special Counsel or the Merit Systems Protection Board instead of seeking a restraining order. Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the unions, pushed back. “Are they really contending to this court that all of these federal employees are lying, Your Honor?” she asked. “That’s what counsel is saying. 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