President Donald Trump, meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, was asked what kind of agreement he hopes special envoy Steve Witkoff secures while in Russia.

"I would like to see a ceasefire from Russia," Trump responded. "And we have not been working in the dark. We've been discussing with Ukraine land and pieces of land that would be kept and lost, all of the other elements of the final agreement. There's a power plant involved."

Trump said it's not an "easy process" and that the ceasefire would be the first phase of long-term peace.

"A lot of the details of the final agreement have actually been discussed. Now we're going to to see whether or not Russia's there and if they're not then it'll be very disappointing moment for the world."

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees who were fired last month from half a dozen federal departments and agencies.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Trump administration to reinstate employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of the Treasury.

He also prohibited the Office of Personnel Management from issuing any guidance about whether employees can be terminated.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous

The Justice Department's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said it has reached out to local leaders of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston to arrange meetings to "discuss their responses to incidents of antisemitism at schools and on college campuses in their cities over the last two years."

Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney and former Fox News personality now leading the task force, sent letters to New York Mayor Eric Adams, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu regarding "allegations that the schools in their respective cities may have failed to protect Jewish students from unlawful discrimination," the department said in a release.

The outreach comes as the DOJ has said it is weighing taking legal action against universities it argues failed to take more aggressive actions to crack down on protests following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The outreach to Adams is also notable as the Justice Department is seeking to dismiss his criminal case without prejudice, an arrangement that led prosecutors on his case to resign rather approve what they argued it amounted to a 'quid pro quo' arrangement to secure his cooperation with immigration enforcement efforts.

-ABC News' Alexander Mallin

A federal judge Thursday morning rebuked the Trump administration for allegedly lying about the mass firing of government employees and submitting "sham documents" to defend their conduct.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup slammed a Department of Justice attorney for refusing to make Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell available for cross-examination and withdrawing his sworn declaration.

"The government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge's ability to get at the truth of what happened here, and then set forth sham declarations," Alsup, a former President Bill Clinton appointee, said. "That's not the way it works in the U.S. District Court."

Lawyers representing a group of unions and interest groups are now asking Alsup to immediately reinstate thousands of probationary government employees who had been terminated, allegedly at the direction of Ezell.

"There is a mountain of evidence before the court that OPM directed it. OPMs actions were unlawful. The plaintiffs have standing, and there is a reparable harm that is occurring every minute, and it is snowballing," said the plaintiff's attorney Danielle Leonard.

Alsup suggested there might be a "need" for an injunction ordering the reinstatement of the employees based on the government's recent conduct.

The judge continued to bash the government for submitting a declaration from Ezell he believed to be false, then withdrew it and made Ezell unavailable for testimony.

While Alsup originally suggested the avenue to contest the firings could be administrative, he noted that the Trump administration is attempting to "decimate" and "cannibalize" the Merit Systems Protection Board by firing its head and Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous