As a result of being involved in President Trump’s firing spree on Friday night, a federal ethics enforcer is trying to regain his position.
Despite federal statutes that aim to insulate officials from politically motivated firings, the president’s ability to terminate officials across the executive branch is being tested in the newest complaint from Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger.
There is no affiliation between the similarly named special counsel offices that manage politically sensitive criminal matters at the Justice Department and the Office of Special Counsel, which President Joe Biden selected Dellinger to head. The primary legislation banning political involvement by federal employees is the Hatch Act, and this agency is responsible for enforcing federal whistleblower laws. Additionally, this agency handles grievances from returning service members who have experienced prejudice.
After White House director Sergio Gor fired Dellinger in an email on Friday, the former employee took legal action on Monday in a federal court in Washington.
This letter is to notify you of your termination, effective immediately, from your job as Special Counsel of the US Office of Special Counsel, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump. Gor expressed his gratitude for the service in a brief message that AWN was able to view.
Among the political appointees that Trump removed last week were National Archives head Colleen Shogan, Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, and an undetermined number of Kennedy Center board of trustees members; the message to Dellinger arrived at the same time.
The removal of political appointees by the president is regulated by many statutes. Many are subject to the president’s whims and fancy dresses. However, the Office of Special Counsel and other so-called independent bodies have legislative safeguards that make it more difficult to terminate an appointee for certain reasons.
In 1978, Congress established the position of Special Counsel and stated that the President may dismiss them only for reasons such as inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misbehavior in office.
The Senate approved Dellinger in February 2024 after he was nominated in October 2023, and on Monday he stated that his performance did not fulfill the criteria Congress set for dismissing a special counsel.
In a statement, Dellinger expressed his immense pride in everything that OSC has achieved since his arrival last year. Supporters of whistleblowers and veterans, among others, have lauded the agency’s efforts. It is unlawful since the attempt to remove me is based on absolutely no evidence or legal precedent.
The authority of Congress to shield agency leaders from dismissal was maintained in a Supreme Court ruling that was almost a century old. However, there are conservatives who want the Supreme Court to reverse that decision, and there are conservative justices who have made it clear that they intend to do so.
The matter may return to the Supreme Court if legal challenges against Trump’s firings are successful. Not only is Dellinger suing, but Gwynne Wilcox, who was appointed by Biden to the National Labor Relations Board but was fired by Trump last month, also filed a complaint this week. According to the law that governs Wilcox’s job, he can be removed “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”
In its letter dismissing Wilcox, the White House stated that the language in question “does not operate as a restriction on [the president’s] ability to remove Board members.” This could be a precursor to Trump’s planned legal challenge to Congress’s so-called for-cause limitations on his broad and potentially unlimited power to fire executive branch employees.
Based on the latest lawsuit, “Special Counsel Dellinger’s purported termination has sown confusion about his authority to lead the OSC and jeopardized the agency’s functioning,” the attorneys claim. “The President’s attempt to remove Special Counsel Dellinger from his office is a clear violation of the important protections that Congress put in place. It also prevents the OSC and the Special Counsel from fulfilling their statutory mandate as intended.”
Requests for comment about the complaint were not promptly addressed by representatives from the White House and the Justice Department.
Trump dismissed fifteen or more inspectors general on the first Friday night of his second term in office. Even though there’s a federal statute that says the president has to tell Congress 30 days in advance and explain the exact grounds for firing any independent monitor, he went ahead and did it anyway. No one who was fired has taken legal action against Trump yet.
Despite Dellinger’s appointment by Biden and his background in the Justice Department, his office has accused several prominent Biden appointments, such as Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the navy, and Neera Tanden, head of domestic affairs in the White House, of violating the Hatch Act.