Trump Can’t Fire Institute of Peace Leaders, Judge Rules (3)

A federal judge said the Trump administration’s removal of board members of the US Institute of Peace was illegal and beyond its powers.

President Donald Trump’s executive order finding that the institute—created by President Ronald Reagan and Congress to advance a safer and more peaceful world—was unnecessary was “a drastic and abrupt change of course,” said Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, granting the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.

Congress’s ability to restrict the President’s removal power is significant, Howell said, according to several “seminal” presidential removal power cases. “Applying those ...