A federal appeals court gave President Trump at least a short-term victory Wednesday in allowing him to oust a government watchdog who has emerged as a chief hurdle to his plans to remake the federal bureaucracy.
The order by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocks a lower court injunction that had kept special counsel Hampton Dellinger on the job as he challenges his firing.
He is still allowed to continue with his challenge but, at least for now, he cannot serve in the post whole he’s doing so.
“This order gives effect to the removal of appellee from his position as Special Counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel,” the appeals court said in an unsigned ruling by Judges Justin R. Walker, Patricia Millet and Karen L. Henderson. Two of them are Republican appointees and one is a Democratic appointee.
The judges set an expedited schedule for hearing Mr. Dellinger’s challenge.
Mr. Dellinger was appointed by President Biden to a five-year term. Mr. Dellinger argues his firing was illegal because under the law he can only be fired for cause, and Mr. Trump’s team gave no reasoning in its firing notice.
The White House says Mr. Dellinger is exercising core executive branch powers and so Mr. Trump must be able to fire him at will.
That issue became all the more pressing when Mr. Dellinger started taking steps to block Mr. Trump’s firing of thousands of “probationary” federal workers.
He has prevailed in getting a 45-day delay in the firing of thousands of those workers.
“In short, a fired special counsel is wielding executive power, over the elected executive’s objection, to halt employment decisions made by other executive agencies,” acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris told the Supreme Court in arguments earlier in the case.
