By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that 19 mostly Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C., cannot pursue a legal challenge to the mass firings of 25,000 recently hired federal workers carried out by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling said the states lacked legal standing to sue because they could not demonstrate that they would be harmed directly by the mass termination of probationary federal employees in February.

The ruling marked the Trump administration’s latest court victory in its efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, including by cutting probationary employees. They typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, though s

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