U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper decided Thursday he could not grant a motion from unions representing the workers to stop the layoffs, though he acknowledged chaos caused by Trump's blitz of second-term executive actions.

A federal judge in Washington has allowed President Donald Trump’s mass firings of federal workers to move forward

A federal judge is refusing to temporarily block the Trump administration’s mass layoff of federal workers while a lawsuit brought by five unions moves forward

The suit was the broadest legal challenge brought against the administration over its moves to dismiss probationary workers and thousands of other government employees.