Judge finds mass firings of federal probationary workers were likely unlawful. Watch.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives that ordered mass firings of government employees, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal.

“Congress has given the authority to hire and fire to the agencies themselves. The Department of Defense, for example, has statutory authority to hire and fire,” Alsup said from the bench as he handed down the ruling Thursday evening in federal court in San Francisco. “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 at another agency. They can hire and fire their own employees.”