A federal appeals court cleared the way Wednesday for President Donald Trump's administration to fire thousands of probationary workers, halting a judge’s order requiring them to be reinstated in a legal win for Trump's effort to downsize the federal workforce.

A federal appeals court Wednesday paused a lower court's ruling ordering the government to rehire around 2 4 ,000 probationary workers.

A U.S. appeals court cleared the way on Wednesday for 18 federal agencies to once again fire thousands of employees who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce but were later reinstated by a lower-court judge in Maryland.