A three-judge panel ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s firings without cause of Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox, Democratic members on the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board, were lawful.
The split 2-to-1 panel decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has no immediate effect, since both Harris and Wilcox’s firings were finalized in May. But Friday’s ruling comes as the Supreme Court is expected to soon hear arguments on whether to overturn a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor — a decision that could expand Trump’s power to shape independent agencies.
In the 1935 Supreme Court ruling on Humprey’s Executor, the justices unanimously found that commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty, effectively limiting when presidents can fire board members.
But when Judges Gregory Katsas and Justin Walker ruled Friday in favor of Trump’s firings of Harris and Wilcox, they argued that MSPB and NLRB fall outside the limitations stemming from Humphrey’s Executor, and that the president can still “remove principal officers who wield substantial executive power.”
“The NLRB and MSPB wield substantial powers that are both executive in nature and different from the powers that Humphrey’s Executor deemed to be merely quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial,” the judges wrote. “So, Congress cannot restrict the President’s ability to remove NLRB or MSPB members.”
Judge Florence Pan, the dissenting panel member and a Biden appointee, argued that the two agencies do fall under the scope of Humphrey’s Executor, and that maintaining the independence of MSPB and NLRB is critical. She wrote that the Trump administration’s “extreme view of executive power sharply departs from precedent.”
“We may soon be living in a world in which every hiring decision and action by any government agency will be influenced by politics, with little regard for subject-matter expertise, the public good, and merit-based decision-making,” she wrote.
The MSPB is an independent agency responsible for adjudicating appeals from federal employees who allege prohibited personnel practices by their agencies. The NLRB investigates unfair labor practices in the private sector and oversees union elections. Both boards are typically composed of members of both political parties.
Trump fired both Wilcox and Harris within his first few weeks in office, but did not point to a specific reason for the terminations. Wilcox and Harris, both of whom were Democratic board members, sued the president over their removals, arguing that they are protected by a federal law meant to ensure MSPB and NLRB’s independence from political considerations — and that the president can only remove them “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Though a federal judge initially ruled the two terminations were unlawful, the Supreme Court reversed that decision in May, effectively green-lighting the finalization of the board members’ firings earlier this year.
In its May decision, the Supreme Court indicated that it was likely “that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power,” which it said would make restrictions on the president’s ability to fire them unconstitutional. Friday’s panel ruling aligns with the Supreme Court’s initial arguments.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments Monday on Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission — a case that may further influence the outcome of both Harris and Wilcox’s terminations.
Mahri Stainnak got the call the day after President Donald Trump took office: the Office of Personnel Management’s human resources office was putting them on administrative leave “effective immediately,” while the agency “investigates your radical and wasteful DEI activity.”
Stainnak was surprised by the news. Before the Trump administration, they served as OPM’s deputy director of the governmentwide Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility. But now they worked as the director of OPM’s talent innovation group, a human resources job focused on recruiting and retaining talent across the federal government.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, I’m not in diversity, equity and inclusion.’ I started a new role in a job that has nothing to do with diversity, equity and inclusion.’ So I felt incredibly shocked and confused,” Stainnak said.
The second call came 48 hours later: Stainnak, a nonbinary person who had worked in the federal government for more than 16 years, received a reduction in force notice, as part of the Trump administration’s plan to root out DEI programs across the federal government.
Stainnak is now part of a class-action lawsuit filed this week in the D.C. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., claims the Trump administration unlawfully targeted and fired federal employees perceived to be associated with DEI work — even if their current jobs had nothing to do with it.
Mary Kuntz, an attorney at the law firm Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, P.C. who is representing the former employees, said the administration’s actions “clearly” violate the Civil Service Reform Act, because employees like Stainnak were fired for previous work in DEI positions.
“You can’t RIF somebody from a position they’re not in,” Kuntz said. “They sought to punish Mahri [Stainnak] for previous DEI work. That’s a violation of the First Amendment.”
Kuntz said the lawsuit claims that the administration’s push to “eviscerate” DEI programs also had a disproportionate impact on people of color, women, non-binary individuals, and violates Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“The DEI folks were working on behalf of people with disabilities, people who are non-native speakers of English. They were advocating for protected groups,” she said.
On the campaign trail last year, President Donald Trump pledged to “eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the entire federal government,” and characterized these programs as promoting “un-American” ideology.
On his first days in office, Trump signed executiveorders that directed agencies to create lists of employees associated with DEI going back to Nov. 5, 2024 — the date of the presidential election. The complaint says agencies were directed to remove those employees, “regardless of their current roles or duties.”
“President Trump’s directives did not merely represent a change in presidential priorities — a normal occurrence when presidential administrations change. Rather, they were targeted actions intended to punish perceived political enemies, as well as to eliminate from the federal workforce women, people of color, and those, like plaintiffs, who advocated for or were perceived as advocating for protected racial or gender groups,” the complaint states.
The complaint says agencies set competitive levels for the RIFs so narrowly that federal employees were unable to compete for retention, and that those impacted by RIFs were not considered for reassignment to other jobs.
“I absolutely feel targeted on the basis of what the Trump administration believes my beliefs are, because I was not working in a diversity, equity and inclusion role in any way at the time when the new administration came in, or at the time I was placed on administrative leave,” Stainnak said.
For all the Trump administration’s actions to strip DEI out of the federal workforce, Kuntz said the president’s executive orders don’t go into any detail to define DEI.
“He characterizes them as illegal and discriminatory and various other things … but does doesn’t define them,” Kuntz said. “You can’t decide that somebody is a different party than the party in the White House and decide to fire them on that basis.”
The lawsuit states that the total number of federal employees impacted by the DEI rollback fis unknown, but says news reports suggest it could be “potentially in the thousands.”
The complaint states that at least 40 women or non-binary individuals, and more than 40 people of color received layoffs in connection with the Trump administration’s directives.
Stainnak and their colleagues filed an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board in March, but Kuntz said that appeal and similar cases brought before the Office of Special Counsel and agencies’ Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) offices, have stalled.
In their last role, Stainnak helped agencies recruit top talent into the federal workforce. But they said the Trump administration’s purge of DEI workers has pushed out individuals who worked on bipartisan projects.
Former federal employees leading the lawsuit include a former operations manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs who “helped ensure that veterans were not inhibited from accessing earned benefits due to cultural or socioeconomic barriers,” a Department of Homeland Security Employee who led language competency efforts at the border to advance intelligence gathering and the safety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“By illegally targeting people based on the Trump administration’s assumptions about our political beliefs, or by targeting us based on who we are, this administration actually is hurting the people who work and live in this country, because now these dedicated, hardworking federal servants are not in their jobs providing the critical services that they do, whether it’s responding to emergencies like hurricanes and making sure folks have drinking water and shelter, or making sure our transportation systems are safe and timely. This action is really hurting the people who live in this country,” Stainnak said.
President Donald Trump walks out of the Cabinet Room following a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Former Environmental Protection Agency employees who were fired after signing a letter criticizing the Trump administration are now appealing their dismissals before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The six former EPA employees, who were among roughly 140 workers who signed a “declaration of dissent” in June, argued their firings were not only an illegal response to exercising their First Amendment rights, but also a form of retaliation for “perceived political affiliation,” and executed without cause.
The former employees are represented by attorneys at several law firms in the MSPB case, including the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
“Federal employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern in their personal capacities, even when they do so in dissent,” Joanna Citron Day, general counsel for PEER, said Wednesday. “EPA is not only undermining the First Amendment’s free speech protections by trying to silence its own workforce, it is also placing U.S. citizens in peril by removing experienced employees who are tasked with carrying out EPA’s critical mission.”
An EPA spokesperson declined to comment, stating that the agency has a longstanding practice of not commenting on pending litigation.
The June dissent letter from EPA employees warned that the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin were “recklessly undermining” the agency’s mission, and criticized the administration’s policies on public health and the environment. The letter led EPA to launch an investigation into employees who signed the letter, resulting in at least eight probationary employees and nine tenured career employees receiving termination notices. Dozens more who signed the declaration were suspended without pay for two weeks, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.
Justin Chen, president of AFGE Council 238, which represents EPA employees, said the firings of these employees added to a “brain drain” at EPA, on top of other workforce losses stemming from the deferred resignation program (DRP) and other actions from the Trump administration this year.
“These were subject matter experts — extremely talented people who were working on behalf of the American public to protect them,” Chen said in an interview. “The loss of these people will be felt for quite some time. And honestly, the intent of this action is to put a chilling effect on the rest of the civil service.”
A termination notice delivered to one of the EPA employees shows that in response to concerns of free speech and whistleblower protection violations, the agency’s general counsel office stated that it believed the issues raised “do not outweigh the seriousness of your offense.”
“The Agency is not required to tolerate actions from its employees that undermine the Agency’s decisions, interfere with the Agency’s operations and mission, and the efficient fulfillment of the Agency’s responsibilities to the public,” the termination letter reads. “You hold a trust-sensitive position that requires sound judgement and alignment with the Agency’s communication strategies.”
Despite the employee having a high performance rating and a lack of disciplinary history, the termination letter stated that “the serious nature of your misconduct outweighs all mitigating factors.”
“I also considered that you took no responsibility for your conduct, which reflects a lack of acknowledgment of the seriousness of your actions and raises concerns about your ability to exercise sound judgment and undermines your potential for rehabilitation,” the letter reads.
In August, EPA leadership also canceled all its collective bargaining agreements and told its unions it would no longer recognize them. The decision came after an appeals court allowed agencies to move forward with implementing President Donald Trump’s March executive order to terminate union contracts at a majority of federal agencies.
“If we still had our collective bargaining rights, none of this would have happened in the first place. We would have immediately filed grievances,” Chen said. “[With the MSPB appeal] our hope is that these employees get everything back — that they will have full reinstatement and full back pay.”
A Donald Trump-backed push has failed to wedge a federal measure that would block states from passing AI laws for a decade into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday that a sect of Republicans is now “looking at other places” to potentially pass the measure. Other Republicans opposed including the AI preemption in the defense bill, The Hill reported, joining critics who see value in allowing states to quickly regulate AI risks as they arise.
For months, Trump has pressured the Republican-led Congress to block state AI laws that the president claims could bog down innovation as AI firms waste time and resources complying with a patchwork of state laws. But Republicans have continually failed to unite behind Trump’s command, first voting against including a similar measure in the “Big Beautiful” budget bill and then this week failing to negotiate a solution to pass the NDAA measure.
Cayman foundation registrations surge as Web3 projects seek safer, liability-shielded structures.
DAOs turn to Cayman models after US rulings raise risks for unwrapped decentralised organisations.
New OECD reporting rules take effect in 2026, but most DAO treasury foundations may remain exempt.
The Cayman Islands is recording a sharp rise in foundation company registrations as Web3 projects reassess where to base their legal entities.
New figures show a strong year-on-year jump in these registrations, signalling how the jurisdiction is becoming a preferred destination for decentralised projects seeking legal clarity.
The growth began gathering pace toward the end of 2024 and has already carried into 2025, with communities and developers looking for structures that can support expanding ecosystems.
The trend reflects how recent legal developments, particularly in the United States, are prompting DAOs and Web3 organisations to seek more predictable, liability-shielding frameworks.
DAO structure shifts
Foundation companies in the Cayman Islands are increasingly being used as legal wrappers for DAOs and as ecosystem stewards for major Web3 networks.
Registrations now include more than 1,300 entities at the end of 2024 and over 400 newly formed in 2025.
Cayman Finance reports that many leading Web3 projects have chosen the jurisdiction, including at least 17 foundations that oversee treasuries above the hundred-million threshold.
These entities allow DAOs to sign agreements, manage intellectual property, hire contributors, and interact with regulators without exposing tokenholders to personal liability.
The shift accelerated after the Samuels v. Lido DAO decision in 2024, where a US federal court found that an unwrapped DAO could be treated as a general partnership under California law.
This prompted many communities to reassess their structures.
The Cayman model provides separate legal personality and ownership capabilities that help plug this liability gap.
Add tax neutrality and a framework familiar to institutional allocators, and the jurisdiction becomes attractive to projects that need both compliance readiness and operational flexibility.
Global Web3 competition
Jurisdictions worldwide are trying to position themselves for the next wave of Web3 growth.
The US has made repeated political pledges about becoming a global crypto hub, particularly under President Donald Trump, yet only a few states explicitly recognise DAOs as legal persons.
This leaves many organisations navigating fragmented rules at the entity level.
Switzerland remains a major onshore centre for Web3 foundations, with the Crypto Valley region now hosting more than 1,700 active blockchain firms and recording growth of over 130% since 2020.
Foundations and associations have become an increasingly important part of this expansion, although projects continue to diversify their jurisdictional footprints in search of structures aligned with their long-term plans.
Compliance changes
The rise in Cayman-based Web3 foundations coincides with a major regulatory shift.
The Cayman Islands has implemented the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, with new Tax Information Authority regulations taking effect from January 1, 2026.
The framework brings due diligence and reporting requirements for “Reporting Crypto-Asset Service Providers,” covering entities that exchange crypto for fiat or other crypto, operate trading platforms, or provide custodial services.
These entities will need to collect tax-residence information from users, track specific transactions, and submit annual reports to the Tax Information Authority.
Legal professionals note that the rules are expected to apply only to service providers engaged in exchange or brokerage activity.
Structures that merely hold crypto assets, such as protocol treasuries, investment funds, or passive foundations, are likely to fall outside this reporting scope under the current interpretation.
This suggests that many DAO-related foundations that act purely as ecosystem stewards or treasury vehicles may continue to benefit from Cayman’s legal certainty without assuming full reporting duties, so long as they are not running exchange, brokerage, or custody operations.
As Web3 organisations mature and adapt to evolving compliance landscapes, the Cayman Islands appears set to remain a central node in the global distribution of decentralised governance structures.
Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have advanced a slew of federal workforce bills, one of which aims to make some significant changes to the federal probationary period.
The GOP-led EQUALS Act was one of about a dozen bills that passed favorably out of the committee on Tuesday. If enacted, it would require new federal employees to serve a two-year probationary period, doubling the length that most newly hired or promoted currently face.
Under the bill, agencies also would have to actively certify that a probationary employee “advances the public interest” before the employee can become officially tenured, while those who are not certified would be removed from their jobs. The legislation advanced in a party line vote of 24-19.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), who introduced the legislation, said the EQUALS Act builds on an April executive order from President Donald Trump, which similarly required agencies to review and actively sign off on probationary workers’ continued employment.
“President Trump could not be more right,” Gill said. “Probationary periods and trial periods are long-standing, essential tools to ensure newly hired federal employees are sufficiently performing before their appointments are finalized permanently.”
Democrats on the committee criticized the Republicans’ bill, arguing that extending the length of the probationary period would negatively impact federal recruitment, as well as open the doors to more terminations of new hires in the government.
“This bill would double the time during which federal employees have limited due process and appeal rights as probationary employees. During this time they could be fired within 30 days’ notice, they have limited rights to an attorney or representative and they generally cannot appeal their removal,” Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (R-Calif.) said Tuesday. “At a time when Donald Trump is attempting illegal mass firings and purging experts from agencies across our government, this bill is a dangerous step in the wrong direction.”
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) added that the EQUALS Act would “give the Trump administration yet another tool to weaponize against federal employees who they perceive as ideological threats, and to continue efforts to destroy the non-partisan civil service.”
Gill, however, argued that the bill would not lead to mass terminations, but instead only make sure that new federal employees are carefully reviewed. He also pointed to a 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office, as well as a 2005 report from the Merit Systems Protection Board, both of which call for reforms to the probationary period.
“An employee can often work for the federal government for over 25 years,” Gill said. “Having an extra year of probationary status to ensure the right employee becomes tenured is a common sense, good government measure.”
During the committee meeting, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) motioned to strike the EQUALS Act and replace it with legislation to first require GAO to review effects of prior probationary period extensions before making any long-term changes. Lynch’s amendment was struck down by the committee’s Republican majority.
Legislation on official time advances
Committee Republicans also advanced a bill that would require agencies to report in greater detail the use of official time by federal employees governmentwide. The Official Time Reporting Act passed out of the committee in a vote of 24-19 along party lines.
If enacted, the bill would require all agencies to submit reports on how much official time is used in each fiscal year, and justify any potential increases in official time that may occur.
During the committee meeting, Republican lawmakers argued that official time takes away from employees’ job responsibilities. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the lead co-sponsor on the bill, also criticized the lack of agencies’ reporting on official time over the last several years.
The bill “will let the American people know exactly how much of their hard-earned money is spent not providing valuable service, but on federal employee union activities,” Foxx said.
Some committee Democrats, however, described the legislation as an attack on union rights. The lawmakers emphasized that official time is used for activities that support federal employees, while raising concerns about the possibility that the bill could let the Trump administration further limit union rights.
“This year under the Trump administration, federal employees have faced job insecurity, financial strain and the loss of collective bargaining agreements. This bill will make matters worse,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said. “We all benefit when unions and their members are empowered to prevent and address retaliation, discrimination and sexual harassment.”
Generally, official time hours can go toward negotiating union contracts, meeting with management, filing grievances or representing employees dealing with management disputes. Under law, federal unions are allotted specific amounts of time and resources to conduct these activities.
Federal unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, have pushed back against the Trump administration’s characterization of official time as “taxpayer-funded union time,” calling it a misrepresentation.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Garcia argued that official time leads to lower staff turnover and higher employee morale, while also preventing potential legal costs down the road.
“Official time is work time that employees are allowed to use for making the workplace safe and protecting workers from discrimination or harassment,” he said.
Committee approves some bills with bipartisan support
In contrast, some legislation that the committee approved on Tuesday gained strong bipartisan support from lawmakers. That includes bills on training for federal supervisors, skills-based hiring of federal contractors and amending the system for relocation payments for federal employees.
The Federal Supervisor Education Act, for instance, unanimously advanced out of the Oversight committee in a vote of 43-0. If enacted, the legislation would require agencies to work with OPM to create training programs for newly hired or promoted agency managers and supervisors.
Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), who introduced the legislation in October, argued during Tuesday’s meeting that many federal supervisors step into leadership roles without enough training, and with no clear expectations for how to adjust to a managerial role in government.
“Agencies promote strong technical employees into supervisory jobs, and then send them in blind,” Timmons said. “That leads to low productivity, uneven standards and a system where good employees feel unsupported and bad employees rarely face consequences.”
Timmons added that the legislation would result in “real, meaningful training,” rather than being “a slideshow or a checkbox exercise.”
Although he said he mostly agreed with the bill’s intentions, Walkinshaw proposed striking one provision of the legislation. The initial bill text included a requirement that supervisory training programs must include additional training on the probationary period — something that Walkinshaw argued was outside the bill’s scope.
Committee Republicans agreed to adopt Walkinshaw’s amendment, after saying that it would result in stronger bipartisan support for the bill. Ultimately, the legislation advanced unanimously, with the amendment included.
“I am a strong supporter of the goal of this legislation,” Walkinshaw said. “Almost all of the language will provide supervisors within the federal workforce the appropriate training and resources to ensure there are strong leaders within their respective agencies.”
The Trump administration has renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, now calling it the National Laboratory of the Rockies, marking an identity shift for the Colorado institution that has been a global leader in wind, solar and other renewable energy research.
“The new name reflects the Trump administration’s broader vision for the lab’s applied energy research, which historically emphasized alternative and renewable sources of generation, and honors the natural splendor of the lab’s surroundings in Golden, Colorado,” said Jud Virden, laboratory director, in a statement.
He did not specify what this “broader vision” would mean for the lab’s programs or its staff of about 4,000.
A second FDIC rule on prudential requirements will follow early next year.
The FDIC will supervise bank subsidiaries issuing payment stablecoins.
Guidance on tokenised deposits is under development.
US regulators are moving quickly to build the country’s new stablecoin supervision system, with federal agencies preparing detailed rulemaking as the GENIUS Act begins to shape policy.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is set to publish an application framework for payment stablecoin issuers later this month, marking one of the earliest steps in implementing the law signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Alongside the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department are working on their own regulatory responsibilities, signalling a coordinated effort to bring stablecoins under a clearer, more structured oversight regime.
FDIC develops licensing framework for stablecoin issuers
The FDIC has confirmed through written testimony scheduled for delivery to the House Financial Services Committee on December 2 that it is close to releasing a proposed rule outlining how payment stablecoin issuers will apply for approval.
The agency began the process earlier this year as part of its duty to implement the GENIUS Act, and the first formal proposal is expected before the end of the month.
Another proposal focusing on prudential requirements for FDIC-supervised issuers is planned for early next year.
Once the application framework is published, the agency will gather public comments before moving toward a final rule, a phase that typically spans several months.
GENIUS Act expands oversight for bank-linked stablecoins
The GENIUS Act introduces a national structure that requires federal and state regulators to coordinate their supervision of stablecoin issuers.
Under the law, the FDIC will oversee and license subsidiaries of insured depository institutions that issue payment stablecoins.
The agency will also set out capital rules, liquidity expectations, and reserve diversification standards.
Much of this work will roll out over the coming year, as several rulemakings are needed to meet the obligations laid out in the legislation.
The FDIC is also consulting recommendations released in July by the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, which urged regulators to clarify digital asset activities allowed for banks, including asset and liability tokenisation.
Tokenised deposits included in regulatory review
In addition to its stablecoin responsibilities, the FDIC is preparing new guidance aimed at clarifying how tokenised deposits will be treated under federal regulation.
This area has gained attention as banks explore digital versions of traditional deposit products.
The forthcoming guidance is expected to help institutions understand which activities fall within supervisory boundaries and how they will be monitored.
Federal Reserve coordinates its own stablecoin standards
The Federal Reserve is coordinating with other banking regulators to craft capital, liquidity, and diversification standards required under the GENIUS Act.
The focus includes creating clarity for banks engaged in digital asset activities and providing regulatory feedback on new use cases as they emerge.
This joint push aims to ensure the banking system can support digital asset development while maintaining stability and compliance.
Other agencies are also advancing their obligations under the GENIUS Act.
The Treasury Department has already completed its public consultations, which concluded in November, and is developing its own rules.
These efforts will run in parallel with the FDIC and Federal Reserve processes, contributing to the broader national framework being built to govern stablecoins across the US.
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The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is convening Tuesday morning to mark up a slew of bills, many of which would impact the federal workforce in one way or another.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first legislative markup session the committee has held in nearly two months, with the last being prior to the 43-day government shutdown. Any bills that the committee approves during the markup will advance to the full House for further consideration.
Several other legislative changes may be on the horizon as well. Here are three key bills up for the committee’s consideration that may bring significant changes for the federal workforce:
Probationary period, federal workforce changes
One Republican-led bill, introduced by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) in October, aims to cement many of the changes the Trump administration has made to the government’s rules for the probationary period in the federal workforce.
If enacted, the so-called EQUALS Act would require most new federal employees to serve a two-year probationary period — a time in which employees have limited appeal rights and are easier to remove, before their employment in the federal workforce can be solidified.
Part of the bill would compel agencies to evaluate their employees regularly throughout the federal probationary period. And in the last 30 days of that two-year period, agencies would have to certify — and get the Office of Personnel Management to approve — that the probationary employee “advances the public interest,” before the employee can become tenured.
Any probationary employees who are not actively certified by their agency would be terminated, according to the GOP-led legislation.
The bill also states that when making a decision on whether to keep a probationary employee, agencies can additionally consider performance and conduct; the “needs and interests” of the agency; and whether the employee would advance “organizational goals” or “efficiency.”
The EQUALS Act aligns with efforts from the Trump administration earlier this year to overhaul the rules for the government’s probationary period. In April, President Donald Trump called for the creation of “Civil Service Rule XI,” which similarly required agencies to review and actively sign off on probationary workers’ continued employment before they can be moved out of a probationary period.
Trump’s executive order also expanded the reasons that probationary period employees can be fired. In June, OPM further clarified that probationary employees can be terminated based on broader reasons than the previous limitations set only to performance or conduct.
The House bill also comes after the Trump administration fired tens of thousands of probationary employees earlier this year, stating that the removals were due to “poor performance.” But in September, a federal judge found that OPM unlawfully directed the mass probationary firings. The judge ordered agencies to update employees’ personnel files to reflect that their firings were not due to performance or misconduct.
An eye on official time
A separate bill teed up by Republicans would compel agencies to provide much more detail on federal union representatives’ use of official time to both Congress and the public on an annual basis.
The Official Time Reporting Act from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) would require all agencies to submit reports on how much official time is used in each fiscal year, and justify any potential increases in official time that may occur.
The legislation would then require OPM and the Office of Management and Budget to create and send a joint report to Congress, and make publicly available online, the details of official time governmentwide. Those reports would have to cover how much official time each federal employee used, as well as provide data on official time hours calculated against the total number of bargaining unit employees for an “official time rate.”
Under the GOP-led legislation, those annual reports would additionally have to detail the specific purpose of all official time, the amount of money withheld for union dues, the cost of pay and benefits for all employees while they are on official time, and the office space and resources union representatives use while on official time.
Generally, official time refers to on-the-clock hours that go toward work such as negotiating union contracts, meeting with management, filing complaints or grievances against an agency, or representing employees who are dealing with disciplinary actions or other management disputes. Federal unions are allotted, by law, specific and limited amounts of agency time and resources to conduct activities on official time.
Official time by union representatives has been a major target of the Trump administration this year. Some agencies have either reduced or fully removed official time options, in response to executive orders from Trump calling for the termination of collective bargaining at the majority of executive branch agencies.
The administration’s actions have received major pushback from federal unions such as the American Federation of Government Employees, which said OPM’s characterization of official time as “taxpayer-funded union time” is false and stigmatizing.
Mandatory executive training
During Tuesday’s markup, Oversight committee lawmakers also plan to consider legislation that would require a mandatory training program all managers and supervisors across the federal workforce would have to take.
Under the Federal Supervisor Education Act, which Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) introduced in October, agencies would have to work with OPM to create training programs for agency managers, with at least some modules focused on goals like performance management, employee engagement and productivity.
The bill would also require the training programs to cover how supervisors should manage employees who have “unacceptable performance,” as well as how to make use of the probationary period. The bill also mandates that managers and supervisors receive training on how to address reports of harassment, prohibited personnel practices, employee rights, and more.
The legislation emphasizes that agencies should use “instructor-based” training as much as practicable. If enacted, supervisors would have to complete the training within one year of being appointed to a supervisory role, and would have to retake the trainings at least once every three years following that.
The Republican-led effort comes after OPM launched two federal workforce training programs for senior executives in November, incorporating common themes from the Trump administration on “accountability,” performance management and adherence to the president’s priorities.
Although both new programs are optional, OPM still told agencies to “set the expectation” that all career Senior Executive Service members should at least complete training modules on “returning to founding principles” and “implementing administration priorities” within the next year.
In the Oversight committee meeting Tuesday, all three federal workforce bills, along with many others, will be up for consideration and potential advancement in the House.
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Democratic lawmakers from the US House of Representatives have accused President Donald Trump and his administration of using the White House to enrich the presidential family through their crypto businesses, calling on Congress to fight corruption.
House Democrats Call Out ‘New Age of Corruption’
In a recent report from the House Judiciary Committee, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin claimed that President Trump had allegedly “exploited” the presidency and transformed the White House into “a personal money-making operation” that has added billions of dollars to his net worth through his crypto ventures.
The 27-page document, named “Trump, Crypto, and a New Age of Corruption,” compiled multiple news media outlet reports affirming that the US President has seen his family’s crypto holdings surge to $11.6 billion since he stepped into office in January, making over $800 million from the sale of digital assets in the first half of 2025.
As reported by Bitcoinist, a Financial Times investigation released in October claimed that the Trump family’s crypto fortune has surged to over $1 billion from his multiple digital asset ventures since his return to the White House.
The investigation explained that Trump’s digital asset businesses have significantly boosted the US President’s net worth on paper by billions of dollars, but only calculated the potential income from the realized profits of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token and USD1 stablecoin, and the official TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
According to FT calculations, the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins made around $362 million and $65 million, respectively, for a total of $427 million in sales and trading fees. Moreover, the WLFI token had generated approximately $550 million by the time of the investigation, while the USD1 stablecoin, which recorded $2.71 billion in total sales, potentially $42 million.
“Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into the world’s most corrupt crypto startup operation, minting staggering personal fortunes for him and his family in less than a year.” Representative Raskin affirmed in a Press Release.
“We don’t know where all the money is coming from yet, but America has never seen corruption on this scale take place inside the White House. This Report shows how Trump’s so-called ‘pro-crypto agenda’ is just one more Trump family self-enrichment plan, built on pay-to-play deals and corrupt foreign interests seeking secret channels of access and influence,” he continued.
Trump’s Crypto Ventures Expose ‘Weaknesses’ Of US System
Raskin also stated that the Trump administration has “dismantled” federal oversight and safeguards that were set to protect Americans from fraud, scams, and financial exploitation. “Trump has been pardoning criminals who commit fraud through crypto and dismantling the regulations that protect legitimate American investors.”
The report presented a list of actions that advanced “Trump and his family’s personal financial interests at the expense of the law, ethics, and national security.” The evidence exposed in the document included claims that the President’s crypto ventures have “attracted substantial investments from foreign nationals and state-linked entities seeking to curry favor with the Administration.”
Last week, Democratic Senators expressed concerns about potential national security risks related to World Liberty Financial over token sales allegedly linked to illicit actors. In a letter, the lawmakers requested that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent investigate allegations that the Trump-backed company had sold tokens to sanctioned entities or individuals with ties to illicit actors in Russia and North Korea.
They also argued that World Liberty Financial and its token “lacks adequate safeguards to prevent bad actors from moving funds or gaining influence over its governance,” which raises concerns over a potential conflict of interest.
The Committee’s report highlighted that the Trump Administration has paused or ended most investigations and enforcement actions involving major crypto companies and disbanded multiple federal-level crypto enforcement units. In addition, it expressed concern about the controversial pardons issue to key industry players, like Binance’s co-founder, Changpeng Zhao.
Ultimately, the document warned that Trump’s crypto moves seemingly expose “severe weaknesses” in the US’s campaign finance, conflict-of-interest, and anti-bribery laws. “Congress must expose this dangerous grift, and defend the rule of law against the profiteers and criminals who would destroy it,” Raskin concluded.
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