The Justice Department told a federal judge on Tuesday that the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management won’t testify at a hearing later this week in a major case challenging the government’s efforts to cull the federal workforce,

WASHINGTON ― Tens of thousands of federal government probationary workers fired in recent weeks as part of President Donald Trump's sweeping cuts to the federal workforce must be reinstated immediately,

The order by U.S. District Judge James Bredar was even more broad than a similar ruling earlier in the day from a different federal judge.

President Donald Trump's administration is expected on Friday to move ahead with a second wave of mass firings and budget cuts across the U.S. government, just one day after two federal judges ordered the reinstatement of thousands of workers.

Two US judges have ordered several federal government agencies to reinstate the jobs of probationary employees fired en masse by the Trump administration last month. In California, District Judge William Alsup called the sacking of these employees part of a "sham" strategy that aimed to circumvent proper procedures for reducing the federal workforce.