In a key legal decision, the D.C. appeals court clears President Donald Trump’s path to remove Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger and other government officials who hamper his bureaucratic reforms.
(Conservative Treehouse) — The D.C. federal appeals court has reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued Saturday. The appeals court is confirming that President Donald Trump has the executive power to fire Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger.
Dellinger was fighting Trump’s effort to reform the bureaucracy in D.C. and fire officials within the executive branch. Activist District Judge Berman Jackson was supporting Hampton Dellinger, saying Trump could not fire him. The appeals court has lifted the lower court’s injunction that barred Trump from removing Hampton Dellinger.
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This is a win for common sense and also a big win for Trump and the plenary power of the executive. The president alone controls the executive office holders, and the courts have no constitutional authority to interfere in the executive branch determinations of staffing. The plenary and constitutional power of the presidency has been affirmed.
From Politico:
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 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.
