The acting head of the government’s human resources arm, Charles Ezell, will no longer testify on Thursday in a case challenging the legality of the recent mass firings of federal workers, lawyers for the Trump administration said.
The move could pave the way for a federal judge to order the government to pause the firings.
Mr. Ezell had been ordered to appear before a San Francisco judge as part of a lawsuit brought against the Office of Personnel Management by unions representing some of the fired workers.
As the office’s acting chief, Mr. Ezell began issuing guidance in January that agencies interpreted as orders to fire federal employees, particularly those with probationary status. That guidance is at the heart of multiple legal challenges, with the once-obscure agency assuming a lead role in President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.
According to a legal complaint from the employee unions, Mr. Ezell held a meeting on Feb. 13 with the heads of many federal agencies in which he ordered them to fire tens of thousands of employees. The next day, O.P.M. provided a template to agencies to use for the termination letters, stating that employees were being fired for performance reasons, according to the plaintiffs.
The unions argued that O.P.M. does not have the authority to make such personnel decisions and asked the court to rule that the office’s orders were illegal and force the government to stop firing people at their direction.
Mr. Ezell filed a declaration on Feb. 26 asserting that he did not order the agencies to fire anyone, and that the memos from his office were intended only as “guidance.” The same day, lawyers for the unions filed examples of correspondence from O.P.M. that they argue show that the memos were indeed orders.