Judge weighs Trump's power to fire watchdog official without cause

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Feb 26, 2025

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WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington sounded skeptical Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s power to fire a federal watchdog official without cause — and aware that the Supreme Court will quickly review whatever she decides.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, after a hearing, gave herself until Saturday to decide how to rule on Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger’s legal challenge to his removal, possibly including a permanent order reinstating him.

Jackson extended her previous temporary restraining order that reinstated Dellinger, which otherwise would have expired Wednesday. The Trump administration had appealed that order to the Supreme Court, which decided to hold that appeal “in abeyance” and wait to see what Jackson did next.

“I am somewhat aware there’s a clock ticking. There are people tapping their feet that aren’t usually paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s going on in this building,” Jackson said during the hearing.

Jackson sounded open to an order that would keep Dellinger in place as head of an office that protects whistleblowers and federal employees more broadly within the executive branch. Congress passed a law requiring that the special counsel could only be removed for cause.

Jackson said the Supreme Court has previously ruled that presidents have the power to fire officials, but she saw the Office of Special Counsel as potentially different from other executive agencies.

“This just seems to be different from every other agency, every other situation addressed by the court,” Jackson said.

Jackson pointed out that the nature of Dellinger’s role as a whistleblower advocate seems “inextricably linked to the independence of the person serving the function” when Congress set up the office.

“Isn’t the point of the statute that the person be independent and not be chilled by the threat of arbitrary and summary removal?” Jackson asked.

And she questioned what the harm would be of keeping Dellinger in the role, since whistleblower protection has gotten bipartisan support in Congress.

Madeline McMahon of the Justice Department argued that the Supreme Court has previously held that presidents have the power to fire the heads of executive agencies with a single director. McMahon also protested the suggestion that Jackson could extend the order keeping Dellinger in office.

“An order would be an extension of an unprecedented intrusion on the president’s authority,” McMahon said. “This confers an irreparable harm on the government and we are not able to agree.”

The fight over Dellinger’s firing has become one of the most high-profile struggles over Trump’s effort to reshape the executive branch, including dramatically reducing the federal workforce.

Since Jackson reinstated him, Dellinger recommended that the firing of thousands of the federal government’s “probationary” employees be stopped, as the dismissals likely violated federal law.

The Merit Systems Protection Board responded Tuesday by putting a hold on the firing of six employees who sued over their removals.

Dellinger praised the MSPB decision in a statement issued Tuesday and said the board should extend the pauses to the thousands of probationary employees fired by Trump officials.

“Agency leaders should know that OSC will continue to pursue allegations of unlawful personnel actions, which can include asking MSPB for relief for a broader group of fired probationary employees,” the statement said.