The Trump administration's central human resources office acted illegally when it directed the mass firings of probationary workers as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to downsize the federal workforce, a judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco said Friday in awarding judgment to a coalition of labor unions and nonprofits that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management “unlawfully exceeded its own powers and usurped and exercised powers reserved by Congress to each individual” federal agency to hire and fire its own workers. “Judge Alsup’s decision makes clear that thousands of probationary workers were wrongfully fired, exposes the sham record the government relied upon, and requires the government to tell the wrongly terminated employees that OPM’s reasoning for firing them was false," said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a statement.