DON’T BET AGAINST THIS HAPPENING NEAR YOU
Somewhere early in this new White House Administration some probationary employee is going to be fired because some higher up thinks the employee does not support the new President’s political views or because some campaign contributor to the new President’s campaign complained about the employee. When that does happen a lot of folks are going to tell the probationer that s/he has no right of appeal—but every one of them will be wrong. When a probationer is fired for what appears to be political reason they can appeal to MSPB. There is a wonderful article by an attorney at Shaw, Bransford and Roth entitled, MSPB: Agencies Terminate Probationary Employees for Political Reasons At Their Own Peril . We recommend you look it over just so that you can be on the lookout for one of your members being fired or political reasons. In the case discussed in the article the employee got his job back, back pay, and career status.
Unfortunately, this protection was eliminated by the recent Executive Order that reformed the rules that apply to probationary employees — EO 14,284 (April 24, 2025). (I see that your post went up just three days before this order, so the order didn’t exist at the time you were writing.) As a result of this Executive Order, appeals of terminations for alleged partisan political reasons will no longer be available to probationary employees, unless the Executive Order is successfully challenged and blocked.