A federal appeals court in an order Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove a top federal ethics watchdog from his office.
The order permitting the removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel came four days after a federal district court judge ruled that President Donald Trump‘s attempt to boot Dellinger was “unlawful.”
However, the order left open the question of whether Dellinger — who has opposed the mass firings of probationary workers by the administration — will be able to return to his position pending an appeal in the case.
Since being filed by Dellinger, the case has already landed in the lap of the Supreme Court once, albeit briefly, and that court is likely to ultimately determine whether Trump has the power to dismiss the special counsel.
Trump fired Dellinger by email last month as part of a wide-ranging effort to reduce the number of federal workers.
Dellinger’s office is responsible for protecting federal employees who act as whistleblowers about illegal or unethical conduct.
Dellinger sued the Trump administration in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., over his termination, which he argued was illegal because of a federal law that says special counsels can only be removed by the president “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance of office.”
District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Feb. 10 issued an order barring Dellinger’s removal as the case continued. The Trump administration then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which in a 2-1 ruling declined to overturn Berman’s order.
The Department of Justice then asked the Supreme Court to rule that Trump had the power to fire Dellinger. But the Supreme Court declined to do so, for now, letting the case wind its way through lower federal courts.
Berman then ruled on Saturday that Trump’s firing was unlawful.
“The Special Counsel’s job is to look into and expose unethical or unlawful practices directed at federal civil servants, and to help ensure that whistleblowers who disclose fraud, waste, and abuse on the part of government agencies can do so without suffering reprisals,” Jackson wrote in her ruling.
“It would be ironic, to say the least, and inimical to the ends furthered by the statute if the Special Counsel himself could be chilled in his work by fear of arbitrary or partisan removal,” Jackson wrote.
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