Trump Can Remove Federal Watchdog Who Fought To Reinstate Thousands Of Fired Workers, Appeals Court Rules

A federal appeals court is allowing President Donald Trump to fire an official who investigates complaints from the federal workforce, lifting a lower court’s injunction that barred Trump from removing Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger.

The Justice Department argued that Dellinger’s continued work as a federal ethics watchdog was undermining Trump’s agenda. In particular, Dellinger has spearheaded a recent effort to reinstate thousands of probationary workers who were fired amid Trump’s overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

Dellinger, an appointee of President Joe Biden, was confirmed to a five-year term last year. Trump tried to fire him Feb. 7, despite a federal law that limits the president’s ability to remove the special counsel. Until now, initial court rulings had allowed Dellinger to stay on the job.

The two-page ruling Wednesday from three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals contained no detailed explanation. But it said lawyers for the Trump administration had met the legal standard to lift an injunction that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued on Saturday.

The three-judge appeals panel consisted of Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Justin Walker, a Trump appointee. None of the three judges recorded a dissent, and the panel indicated a full opinion would be issued later.

The ruling flips the momentum in the president’s favor ahead of an imminent Supreme Court battle over Trump’s power to unilaterally fire executive branch officials who are protected by laws meant to preserve their independence.

Last month, the high court declined to rule immediately on a request by the Trump administration to allow Dellinger to be replaced, effectively giving Dellinger a reprieve. But the high court is expected to weigh in more substantively soon on the issue — whether in Dellinger’s case or in another case.

The administration is also appealing a judge’s decision to reinstate another Biden appointee Trump sought to fire: Cathy Harris, chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles employee grievances. Harris, like Dellinger, has been a key player in the brewing legal battle over the Trump administration’s mass firings of thousands of probationary government employees. After Dellinger brought a petition to the merit systems board on behalf of more than 5,600 fired workers at the Department of Agriculture, Harris on Wednesday ordered the department to restore the workers to their jobs for at least the next 45 days.

Shortly after Trump first tried to fire Dellinger, the president moved to replace him on an acting basis with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. Many of the employee complaints the special counsel receives come from the VA. The agency is also planning to fire about 80,000 workers, according to the Associated Press.

Dellinger had no immediate comment on the appeals court’s ruling, but earlier Wednesday he issued a statement calling on federal agencies to halt what he termed “apparently unlawful personnel actions.”

Dellinger helmed the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency in the executive branch that has several duties. In addition to investigating federal workers’ grievances, it fields whistleblower complaints and enforces a federal law that limits political activity by federal employees. Despite its name, the office is not related to the special counsels in the Justice Department who sometimes handle politically sensitive prosecutions.