Washington, D.C. — A group of former federal civil servants filed suit against the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and the Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer today for unlawfully abandoning their statutory duty to protect merit-based employees from prohibited personnel practices. The lawsuit challenges the Trump-Vance administration’s OSC’s refusal to investigate the mass terminations of probationary employees earlier this year — a sweeping purge carried out without individualized assessments of performance or conduct. Democracy Forward is representing the plaintiffs in this litigation. 

Congress created the OSC as an independent watchdog to shield federal workers from retaliation and political interference. For decades, OSC has played a critical role in safeguarding the nonpartisan merit-based civil service. In February 2025, the Trump-Vance administration terminated thousands of probationary federal employees governmentwide. These mass firings violated federal regulations and core merit system principles designed to ensure the integrity of the non-partisan career civil service. 

More than 2,000 probationary employees filed complaints with OSC, describing how their terminations were unlawful. The OSC initially agreed, and the then Senate-confirmed Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger, immediately acted to protect these civil servants. He launched investigations and issued public statements affirming the OSC’s statutory role. But the Trump-Vance administration unlawfully removed Dellinger, and the OSC abruptly reversed course, issued a directive closing more than 2,000 complaints, and left probationary employees without recourse.

“By closing the door on thousands of dedicated public servants who were unlawfully laid off, the Trump-Vance administration has transformed the independent Office of Special Counsel into yet another political arm of the White House,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This unlawful abdication of duty strikes at the core of the non-partisan civil service system and threatens to return us to a corrupt spoils system where loyalty trumps merit.”

The plaintiffs — who served at agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission — were terminated despite strong performance reviews and no record of misconduct. Their lawsuit argues that OSC’s actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act and its statutory obligations under Title 5, and seeks to have OSC reopen and investigate complaints submitted by probationary employees in a manner consistent with the agency’s statutory obligations. 

This lawsuit is part of Democracy Forward’s ongoing efforts to defend the integrity of the federal workforce and uphold merit-based protections. Democracy Forward is also representing federal workers in cases challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful grant restrictions on health, housing, and victim service programs, its attempt to dismantle AmeriCorps, and its attacks on the independence of agencies such as the National Transportation Safety Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Among others, these cases seek to stop political interference in the nonpartisan civil service and uphold the rule of law.

The case is Civil Servant 1 et al v. Office of Special Counsel et al, and the legal team at Democracy Forward in this case includes Michael Martinez and Elena Goldstein.

Read the complaint here.

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