The Trump administration plans to use the shutdown to fire thousands of federal workers, a move that would throw the government into uncharted legal territory.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week encouraged agencies to think of the shutdown as an “opportunity” to fire federal workers, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that they would be targeting “agencies that don’t align with the administration’s values.”

While the government has had numerous shutdowns in recent years, no administration has used the lapse in funding as a method for firing furloughed workers, bringing a new legal issue before the court.

The plan to do so has already prompted one suit from a union representing federal workers.

“The administration has threatened to inflict punishment on, and further traumatize, federal employees throughout the nation,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) wrote in its lawsuit brought alongside several other democracy groups and unions.

“The cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful.”

President Trump has said he sees the shutdown as a window to carry out his vision with less resistance — a claim........

© The Hill