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Hundreds of U.S. Forest Service employees and others within the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Montana may get a brief reprieve after being suddenly fired in mid-February by the administration of President Donald Trump. 

But that's only if the administration follows an order from a quasi-judicial federal body that oversees government employment disputes. 

On Wednesday, the chair of the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates federal employee disputes over firings, ruled that the mass firings may have violated a federal law that requires the government to document an employee's poor performance ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” even if they are a new hire on probational status ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” before firing them. 

Beginning around Feb. 14, tens of thousands of federal workers nationwide, including thousands in USDA and its agencies, received nearly identical letters informing them they were fired due to poor performance. The employees were probational employees, meaning they had been on the job for less than one year ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” two years, for certain jobs ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” and had less protection from being fired. 

The administration and other defenders of the mass firings portrayed the axed workers as all being new to their agencies. But many dismissed employees told the Missoulian, other Lee Enterprises newspapers in Montana and national news outlets that they had worked at their agencies for years and were simply within the probationary period for a new job they'd moved to within the agency, such as through a promotion. 

Regardless, the fired employees said the justification in their firing letters didn't mesh with consistently positive performance reviews they'd received. , some of said exactly that. 

On Wednesday, board chair Cathy Harris determined that discrepancy might have made the firings illegal. Her decision applied to the 5,000 or 6,000 people estimated to have been fired at USDA. 

Harris reinstated the workers for 45 days, or though April 18. Harris should come to a final decision on the legality of the firings by then.

It was unclear Friday afternoon how many people of the hundreds fired in Montana would be affected, or even how many people exactly have actually been fired as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency orders mass firings across the federal workforce.

The entity is not an actual federal department ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” those must be created by Congress ÐÔÊӽ紫ý” but rather an ad-hoc collection of executive-branch employees working under the direction of Elon Musk, a billionaire and the world's richest man. The entity's acronym, DOGE, is a reference to a meme-based cryptocurrency he frequently referenced in the past. 

USDA and Forest Service spokespeople in Montana-based local and regional offices who haven't already been fired have stated they cannot discuss the firings. All inquiries on that topic must be addressed by the national headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., they said.

So far, national-level press officials have steadfastly refused to answer questions from Lee Enterprises about the number of firings. 

The Missoulian submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for public records to the Forest Service's Region 1 headquarters in Missoula, requesting the number of people fired at each national forest in Montana during the mass firings. The inquiry was directed to the Forest Service's National Press Desk, which, in an unsigned email, refused to answer the Missoulian's questions. 

It was also unclear whether the USDA or Forest Service would actually follow the Merit System Protection Board order to reinstate the employees. The Trump administration already has refused to comply with court orders directing it to continue funding some federal grants and foreign aid programs. 

Some longtime Forest Service employees, who remain at the agency and spoke to the Missoulian on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation, said Friday afternoon they had heard of the reinstatement order but had yet to see any fired workers actually return to their jobs.