It was a chaotic weekend for the federal workforce, as President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, agency officials, federal judges and the Supreme Court all made news that could have a number of implications for their jobs. Catch up on what you may have missed here.
- New FBI Director Kash Patel has told senior officials that he plans to relocate up to 1,000 employees from Washington to field offices around the country and move an additional 500 to a large bureau facility in Huntsville, Alabama, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The plans were communicated Friday, the same day Patel was sworn in on the campus of the White House, and are in keeping with his oft-stated vision of reducing the size of the FBI’s footprint in Washington and having more of a presence in offices in other cities.
- The Trump administration is restoring jobs for dozens of National Park Service employees fired amid government-wide reductions and hiring nearly 3,000 additional seasonal workers, following an uproar over an aggressive plan to downsize the agency. At least 50 jobs are being restored to help maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and collect admission fees, according to two people familiar with the agency’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
- A federal judge in Manhattan on Friday extended a ban on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency accessing sensitive Treasury Department information, but rejected broader restrictions sought by 19 Democratic state attorneys general who sued over the issue. Judge Jeannette A. Vargas issued a preliminary injunction but said she may lift the ban — which she initially put in place earlier this month — if the Treasury Department certifies by March 24 that DOGE members have received required cybersecurity training.
- The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily kept on the job the head of the federal agency that protects government whistleblowers, in its first word on the many legal fights over President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. The justices said in an unsigned order that Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, could remain in his job at least until Wednesday. That’s when a lower-court order temporarily protecting him expires.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists President Donald Trump ’s abrupt firing of the nation’s senior military officer amid a wave of dismissals at the Pentagon wasn’t unusual, brushing aside outcry that the new administration is openly seeking to inject politics into the military. He also suggested more firings could come. “Nothing about this is unprecedented,” Hegseth told “Fox News Sunday” about Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. being removed Friday night as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The president deserves to pick his key national security advisory team.”
- The Trump administration moved its fast-paced dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development toward what appeared to be its final phases, telling all but a fraction of staffers worldwide that they were on leave as of Monday and notifying at least 1,600 of the U.S.-based staffers they were being fired. The move was the latest and one of the biggest steps in what President Donald Trump and cost-cutting ally Elon Musk say is their goal of gutting the six-decade-old aid and development agency in a broader campaign to slash the size of the federal government.
- Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk’s latest demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week — or risk losing their job. The pushback from appointees of President Donald Trump marked a new level of chaos and confusion within the beleaguered federal workforce, just a month after Trump returned to the White House and quickly began fulfilling campaign promises to shrink the government.
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