A federal judge ruled Saturday that President Donald Trump’s firing of a federal workforce watchdog was illegal — teeing up a Supreme Court showdown over the president’s claim to nearly absolute control of the executive branch.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded that Hampton Dellinger — confirmed last year as head of the Office of Special Counsel — may continue to serve his five-year term despite Trump’s effort to remove him from the post via a brusque email last month.
A law on the books for more than four decades specifies that the special counsel can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” but the Justice Department argued that provision is unconstitutional because it impinges on the president’s authority to control executive agencies.
Jackson ruled that Dellinger’s duties, which include holding executive branch officials accountable for ethics breaches and fielding whistleblower complaints, were meant to be independent from the president, making the position a rare exception to the president’s generally vast domain over the executive branch.
Dellinger’s “independence is inextricably intertwined with the performance of his duties,” Jackson wrote in a 67-page opinion. “The elimination of the restrictions on plaintiff’s removal would be fatal to the defining and essential feature of the Office of Special Counsel as it was conceived by Congress and signed into law by the President: its independence. The Court concludes that they must stand.”
Justice Department attorneys contended Dellinger had significant power to act unilaterally, making it critical that he be under the control of the president, but Jackson said Trump’s lawyers were exaggerating the special counsel’s scope.
“This is not significant executive authority. It is hardly executive authority at all,” said the judge, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
Less than an hour after Jackson ruled, the Justice Department appealed her decision to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dellinger, a Biden appointee, welcomed the ruling.
“I’m grateful to see the court confirm the importance and legality of the job protections Congress afforded my position,” Dellinger said in a statement. “My efforts to protect federal employees generally, and whistleblowers in particular, from unlawful treatment will continue.”
Days after Dellinger’s dismissal last month, Jackson issued a temporary restraining order restoring the Biden appointee to his position. That prompted the Justice Department to make an emergency application to the Supreme Court to let Trump move forward with the firing. The justices issued an unusual response to that request, not granting it or denying it, but declaring they were holding the application “in abeyance” pending further action in the lower courts.
Two Republican-appointed justices — Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito — dissented, saying they would have put Jackson’s ruling on hold.
The dispute is likely to return to the Supreme Court within a matter of days or weeks.
