The District Court of Appeal is located in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Feb. 16 (UPI) — A divided federal appeals court has denied President Donald Trump‘s request to fire a federal official from a post overseeing workplace protections for federal employees.
The White House plans to appeal the 2-1 decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals issued late Saturday that affirmed a district court judge’s decision blocking the firing of Office of Special Counsel chief Hampton Dellinger, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
“I can and am continuing with my work as Special Counsel, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so,” Dellinger said in a statement to Politico after the appeals court ruling.
The Justice Department described the district court’s ruling as an “unprecedented assault on the separation of powers,” according to a copy of the appeal obtained by CNN.
“Until now, as far as we are aware, no court in American history has wielded an injunction to force the president to retain an agency head whom the president believes should not be entrusted with executive power and to prevent the president from relying on his preferred replacement.”
Joe Biden’s appointees Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs rejected the appeal and Trump appointee Greg Katsas dissented
Pan and Childs noted U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson‘s current order restoring Dellinger to his position runs only through Feb. 26 and such short-term orders are ordinarily not subject to appeals court review. Berman Jackson was appointed by Biden.
The appeals judges noted lifting the order at this stage of the litigation was certain to lead to “a deluge” of similar requests in other cases. But Katsas said “the extraordinary character of the order at issue here – which directs the President to recognize and work with an agency head whom he has already removed – warrants immediate appellate review.”
Dellinger and another watchdog David Huitema, director of the Office of Government Ethics, were notified by email Feb. 7 they were removed from their posts. Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the executive branch’s ethics program.
They are both five-year posts.
On Monday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was named the interim leader of two watchdog offices after firing their bosses.
Widespread terminations
Other lawsuits have been filed by officials abruptly removed by Trump from key positions across the executive branch. They include eight inspectors general that Trump fired in his first week. Also fired was Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board, Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Susan Grundmann, a member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Trump is allowed to fire inspectors general but Congress must be given 30-days notice and a detailed explanation, which he didn’t do.
Trump has been slicing the workforce, not only political appointees but civil service personnel.
There have been more 10,000 terminated federal workers across multiple agencies as part of its “large-scale reductions” in the government workforce. Trump signed an executive order Tuesday seeking a significant reduction in the size of the government.
In all there are about 3 million federal employees. In addition, the government has contractors.
The initial firings were mainly those in their first year of their federal job, as they lack the ability to appeal their terminations. There are about 220,000 first-year employees, as of March 2024, according to the most recently publicly available data from the Office of Personnel Management.
The Trump administration said it has secured the resignations of more than 75,000 federal employees representing 3.75% of the federal government’s workforce “in an effort to eliminate inefficiency at taxpayer expense.” It’s a buyout program to pay eight months salary plus benefits.