Senior federal officials have quietly counseled several agencies against firing employees while the government is shut down — as President Donald Trump has suggested he will — warning the strategy may violate appropriations law, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
The officials cautioned that firings — known as reductions in force (RIFs) — could be vulnerable to legal challenges under statutes labor unions cited this week in a lawsuit seeking to block threatened mass layoffs. For example, the Antideficiency Act prohibits the federal government from obligating or expending any money not appropriated by Congress. It also forbids incurring new expenses during a shutdown, when funding has lapsed; some federal government officials have concluded the prohibition could extend to the kind of severance payments that accompany reductions in force.
Trump and White House Budget Director Russell Vought, whose office oversees apportionment law and has led the administration's preparation for terminations, have repeatedly said mass dismissals would come during a government shutdown. Plans for such firings have been developed at several agencies, according to two federal officials familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail internal conversations. Those plans, which have yet to take effect, dictate smaller reductions in force than what the White House has projected.
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