A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday barred the Trump administration from a controversial series of pre-planned layoffs during the ongoing government shutdown .

In a bench ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston , a Bill Clinton appointee, blocked issuing so-called reductions in force (RIFs) aimed at reducing federal employees. Such RIFs were first proposed late last month, days before the shutdown began.

The court lambasted the idea of mass firings as both politically motivated and well beyond executive authority.

On Wednesday afternoon, Illston said the Trump administration seems to have "taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don't apply to them anymore and that they can impose the struc

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