Fired Officials Go Before D.C. Circuit Judges Who Backed Trump

Two independent agency officials challenging their terminations by President Donald Trump must persuade federal judges who’ve already endorsed parts of the administration’s arguments against their reinstatement.

National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris—both of whom prevailed in district court—will press their cases during oral argument Friday at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The hearing marks the latest stop for the linked cases pitting the president’s power to remove agency officials against Congress’s ability to limit that authority. Axed members of the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Labor Relations Authority have also sued to enforce explicit firing shields.

The litigation, which tests the validity of a 1935 US Supreme Court decision backing removal protections, seems headed for review at the high court.

The Justice Department contends that Trump was allowed to fire Wilcox and Harris despite their legal safeguards only permitting for-cause terminations. Even if their firings weren’t legal or constitutional, courts lack the power to order their reinstatement, the administration argues.

The D.C. Circuit panel considering the cases includes Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee who joined a March decision pausing lower court rulings that would have put Wilcox and Harris back to work. Walker penned a concurring opinion agreeing with the administration’s argument for why their removal protections shouldn’t prevent Trump from firing them.

The panel also includes Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee who dissented from a February ruling that refused to block the temporary reinstatement of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. Katsas said that the district court’s order directing Trump to work with an official he already axed inflicts a “grave and irreparable” injury to the president.

Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, is the third member of the panel. Pan joined the majority of en banc D.C. Circuit judges who lifted the March ruling that had blocked the reinstatement of Wilcox and Harris.

Chief Justice John Roberts subsequently countermanded the full D.C. Circuit’s ruling. Still pending is the administration’s request for the Supreme Court to take the highly unusual step of agreeing to hear the linked cases before the appeals court rules on their merits.

Power to Fire

The D.C. Circuit’s consideration of Trump’s power to fire independent agency officials is a crucial step, even though the Supreme Court will likely have the last word.

“You need these very smart circuit court judges to look through the briefs to tee up the issue for the Supreme Court,” said Jed Shugerman, an administrative law professor at Boston University. “There is a lot of noise in the briefs. Having circuit court judges parse through the briefs and arguments make it easier for the Supreme Court to focus on the main evidence and main arguments.”

Shugerman filed an amicus brief based on new historical research arguing that, at the time of the country’s founding, the president wasn’t viewed as having expansive powers to remove executive officials.

His amicus brief contesting the scholarship that’s buoyed the unitary executive theory’s broad conception of presidential authority is one of more than 10 briefs filed in support of Harris and Wilcox.

Professors filed two separate briefs arguing for the critical role that the continued validity of for-cause removal shields play on the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Federal Reserve

Absent high court precedent restraining him, Trump would have fired Fed Chairman Jerome Powell during his first term and installed somebody who’s take on monetary policy were most closely aligned with his, according to a brief from Peter Conti-Brown, a University of Pennsylvania financial historian and legal scholar.

“We need not speculate about the consequences for American prosperity to such a world,” he said. “Among the best-established empirical facts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that central bankers insulated from summary removal are able to protect the value of their countries’ currency better than those who aren’t.”

Trump raised the possibility of firing Powell in April, though he soon walked back that suggestion.

The Trump administration garnered nearly 10 amicus briefs, including filings from a libertarian advocacy group, an industry coalition, and an alliance of pro-gun organizations.

The US Chamber of Commerce argued in a brief that a decision backing Trump’s firing power wouldn’t put the Federal Reserve’s independence at risk.

The president can fire officials that wield executive power, like members of the NLRB, but controlling monetary policy is not an executive function, the Chamber argued. The Federal Reserve’s design, which differs from other agencies, follows models from earlier eras, it said.

“This unique structure of the Federal Reserve—which mixes private and public elements and thereby insulates monetary policy from the President—drew from historical precedents that date to the Founding,” the Chamber said.

The cases are Wilcox v. Trump, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05057, oral argument scheduled 5/16/25 and Harris v. Bessent, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05037, oral argument scheduled 5/16/25.