U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger resigned his post on Thursday, removing himself as a hurdle to President Trump’s plans to fire thousands of federal employees.
Mr. Dellinger announced his departure after losing his attempt to have an appeals court keep him in his job while he challenged his firing by Mr. Trump.
He led the Office of Special Counsel, which acts as a watchdog for federal employees who face adverse personnel decisions. This week alone he had secured a delay in the firing of more than 5,000 Agriculture Department employees.
But after a series of court losses, he said he is “ending my legal battle.”
“My fight to stay on the job was not for me, but rather for the ideal that OSC should be as Congress intended: an independent watchdog,” he said.
He was appointed by President Biden and took the job a year ago. He said he regretted not making it to the one-year mark.
His ouster marks a major legal victory for Mr. Trump amid a generally losing string of early court rulings.
Mr. Dellinger had argued his post was immune to being fired at will by the president. He said he could only be ousted for cause, which the president did not provide in the Feb. 7 notice firing him.
The White House said Mr. Dellinger was exercising core executive powers and so he has to be subject to removal at the president’s whim. Otherwise the president could face an opponent from within his own administration.
Indeed, that’s exactly what did happen when Mr. Dellinger challenged the administration’s move to fire probationary employees.
“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 last month.
A federal district court had sided with Mr. Dellinger.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, ruled last weekend that the special counsel occupied a unique role in government in that it had duties to report to the president, to Congress and the public.
She said Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire him was “unlawful” and she issued an injunction keeping him in office while the legal battle developed.
But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stayed that decision in an order Wednesday night.
That meant Mr. Dellinger could have continued his challenge to his firing, but he would not have been able to hold the office as the case proceeds.
“I strongly disagree with the circuit court’s decision, but I accept and will abide by it. That’s what Americans do,” he said.
