A second ruling saying “Not so fast” to Trump:

A second federal judge has ordered the mass reinstatement of fired federal workers, reversing the Trump administration’s terminations of probationary employees at 18 major agencies.

The agencies covered by U.S. District Judge James Bredar’s sweeping order, issued Thursday night, include the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation and Treasury, among others.

Bredar’s order sweeps even more broadly than a ruling earlier in the day from a different federal judge, who directed six Cabinet departments to immediately rehire probationary employees who were fired under President Donald Trump’s plan to cut the federal workforce.

Both judges concluded that the Trump administration used false allegations of “performance” issues as a pretext to justify the large-scale firings and ignore legally mandated procedures for slimming the workforce.

Allegations which can’t have deceived many people, given the fact that Trump couldn’t possibly have known anything about any “performance issues” across multiple agencies.

Bredar’s ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Democratic state attorneys general. The earlier ruling — from San Francisco-based Judge William Alsup — came in a lawsuit brought by federal employees’ unions.

Stand by for Trump to eliminate state attorneys general and federal employee unions.

Both rulings emerged on the same day the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to rein in the authority of district court judges to issue so-called nationwide injunctions limiting or block federal policies. The Justice Department is also urging the high court to narrow the circumstances in which states can pursue challenges to federal actions.

One way Trump has sought to push back against a flood of litigation against his executive actions is by encouraging judges to require that states, individuals or organizations seeking injunctions against those policies post financial bonds designed to compensate the federal government if the government eventually prevails in the cases.

Bredar agreed to impose such a bond in the case he is handling over the mass firings of probationary employees. He ordered the 19 states and the District of Columbia to post $100 apiece.

Oooh sarcasm. Wicked.