As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to overhaul the federal government, they’re forcing out thousands of workers with insider knowledge and connections who now need a job. These mass layoffs and resignations are prompting concerns that a disgruntled former employee may seek to sell secrets to a foreign power.
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In an emergency appeal filed Monday, the administration argued the ruling should be put on hold because the judge didn’t have the authority to order some 16,000 probationary employees to be hired back.
The order came from U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, who found the firings didn’t follow federal law and required immediate offers of reinstatement be sent.
The agencies include the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction Monday morning in a case filed in a Maryland federal court last month by a coalition of labor unions.
The lawsuit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, alleges the Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it gave Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to systems with the personal information of tens of millions of Americans without their consent.
Boardman had previously issued a temporary restraining order. The preliminary injunction offers longer-term relief blocking DOGE access at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management as the case plays out.
The judge found the Trump administration likely violated privacy laws. She said the government failed to adequately explain why DOGE needed access to “millions of records” to perform their job duties.
She said the administration can still carry out the president’s agenda without receiving unfettered access to a trove of personal data on federal employees and people with student loans and government benefits.
That includes their income and asset information, Social Security numbers, birth dates, home addresses and marital and citizenship status.
The president is convening a meeting with top administration officials on Monday morning, according to the White House.
Elon Musk, who is leading efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government, will be there.
The last time Musk attended such a meeting, there were reports of clashes between him and Cabinet officials, particularly Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump moved swiftly afterward to tamp down questions about disharmony within his administration.
The White House has confirmed White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are headed to Greenland in the coming days to visit with U.S. troops at Pituffik Space Base and attend a dogsled race.
The visit comes as Trump has repeatedly raised the idea of the U.S. taking control of the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of NATO ally Denmark.
“The U.S. has a vested security interest in the Arctic region and it should not be a surprise the National Security Advisor and Secretary of Energy are visiting a U.S. Space Base to get first-hand briefings from our service members on the ground,” White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement. “We also look forward to experiencing Greenland’s famous hospitality and are confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self determination and advances economic cooperation.”
Waltz and Wright will be joining second lady Usha Vance for the trip. The White House announced Vance’s travel to Greenland on Sunday.
The plant is part of an overall $20 billion investment by Hyundai, the Korean automaker.
“More investments, more jobs, and more money in the pockets of hardworking Americans — all thanks to President Trump’s economic policies,” wrote White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on social media.
Just after midnight, the president posted a social media message calling for Chief Judge James Boasberg to be disbarred. Trump reposted an article about Boasberg’s attendance at a conference that purportedly featured “anti-Trump speakers.”
The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law that hadn’t been invoked since World War II. Flights already were in the air on March 15 when Boasberg agreed to temporarily bar the deportations and ordered planes to return to the U.S.
The administration appealed the order.
On Monday afternoon, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear attorneys’ arguments.
The Government Accountability Office confirmed the review in a letter sent to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The Massachusetts Democrat, whose office provided the letter to The Associated Press, had requested a review of how many workers were fired, how many were rehired under judicial orders this month and how each agency’s functions were impacted by the workforce cuts.
Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has fired thousands of workers across the federal government.
Federal judges this month ordered the Trump administration to rehire probationary workers for now. The White House had defended the president’s power to hire and fire employees.
As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government, one group is already taking a front and center role: military veterans.
From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions. And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service.
“At a moment of crisis for all of our veterans, the VA’s system of health care and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully put on the chopping block by the Trump administration,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, at a news conference last week.
▶ Read more about how veterans are responding to the government’s plans
The president and the Governor of Louisiana are planning to deliver remarks in the Roosevelt Room this afternoon, according to the White House. Later, Trump will participate in a Greek Independence Day Celebration.
During the first Trump administration, the biggest concern for many journalists was labels. Would they, or their news outlet, be called “fake news” or an “enemy of the people” by a president and his supporters?
They now face a more assertive Trump. In two months, a blitz of action by the nation’s new administration — Trump, chapter two — has journalists on their heels.
Lawsuits. A newly aggressive Federal Communications Commission. An effort to control the press corps that covers the president, prompting legal action by The Associated Press. A gutted Voice of America. Public data stripped from websites. And attacks, amplified anew.
“It’s very clear what’s happening. The Trump administration is on a campaign to do everything it can to diminish and obstruct journalism in the United States,” said Bill Grueskin, a journalism professor at Columbia University.
“It’s really nothing like we saw in 2017,” he said. “Not that there weren’t efforts to discredit the press, and not that there weren’t things that the press did to discredit themselves.”
▶ Read more about how the media is being impacted by the Trump administration
Danish police have sent extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland as the mineral-rich island steps up security measures ahead of a planned visit this week by U.S. second lady Usha Vance, which has stirred new concerns about the Trump administration’s interest in the autonomous Danish territory.
Greenland’s prime minister lamented a “mess” caused by the visit from Vance, who reportedly will be accompanied by Trump’s national security adviser.
The visit — in which Vance plans to learn more about Greenland’s cultural heritage and see a national dogsled race — comes against the backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump ’s ambition for the United States to seize control of Greenland.
▶ Read more about the second lady’s trip to Greenland
Here are some of the headlines from the weekend
As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to overhaul the federal government, they’re forcing out thousands of workers with insider knowledge and connections who now need a job.
For Russia, China and other adversaries, the upheaval in Washington as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency guts government agencies presents an unprecedented opportunity to recruit informants, national security and intelligence experts say.
Every former federal worker with knowledge of or access to sensitive information or systems could be a target. When thousands of them leave their jobs at the same time, that creates a lot of targets, as well as a counterespionage challenge for the United States.
“This information is highly valuable, and it shouldn’t be surprising that Russia and China and other organizations — criminal syndicates for instance — would be aggressively recruiting government employees,” said Theresa Payton, a former White House chief information officer under President George W. Bush, who now runs her own cybersecurity firm.
▶ Read more about the growing fears of espionage in the federal government
Protesters hold signs during a "Fight Like Hell" rally, part of a national series of rallies held to protest the Trump administration's plans to privatize or restructure the U.S. Postal Service, Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)
Elon Musk, left, shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship, Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
FILE - Demonstrators rally in support of federal workers outside of the Department of Health and Human Services, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
