Trump Administration Asks SCOTUS to Uphold Firing of Special Counsel
President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the recent dismissal of Hampton Dellinger, the head of the office of the special counsel (OSC) — the nation’s top independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency.
This is the first case challenging the new Trump administration’s actions to head to SCOTUS.
On Feb. 7, the Trump administration fired Dellinger, for no given reason, in a one sentence email: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Special Counsel of the US Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately,” the email read.
The office of the special counsel, according to the 1978 law that created the position, is meant to be an independent, non-partisan federal agency untethered to the changing political winds of a new administration. The OSC is the federal agency tasked with protecting federal whistleblowers — investigating reports of corruption, fraud and government waste — and protecting federal employees from retaliation for blowing the whistle.
After his termination, Dellinger sued the Trump administration Feb. 10, alleging that the action was unlawful because, according to the lawsuit, “The Special Counsel may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Because Trump gave no reason for dismissing Dellinger, his firing “is in direct conflict with nearly a century of precedent that defines the standard for removal of independent agency officials and upholds the legality of virtually identical for-cause removal protections for the heads of independent agencies.”
A few days after Dellinger filed his lawsuit, a district court judge blocked the Trump administration’s actions, reinstating Dellinger to his position until a full court hearing on the matter Feb. 26. In her order, District Court Judge Amy Berman wrote that, “this language expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the special counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change.”
But the Trump administration wants Dellinger permanently removed from his position. In an application to the Supreme Court to vacate Berman’s order, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice said the “case involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief” because the president should have “unrestricted power of removal” of executive officers that were appointed by previous presidents.
“The United States now seeks this Court’s intervention because these judicial rulings irreparably harm the Presidency by curtailing the President’s ability to manage the Executive Branch in the earliest days of his Administration,” the application reads.
Read the application to vacate the District Court’s order here.