Trump’s Firing of Whistleblower Agency Head Ruled Unlawful (1)

A federal judge ruled that the head of an independent US agency that protects government whistleblowers was unlawfully fired last month by President Donald Trump, even as the White House aims to get the case on a fast-track to the Supreme Court.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Saturday entered judgment in favor of Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, and issued a permanent injunction barring his dismissal or recognition of any attempted replacement.

Congress “took pains” to insulate the role “to some degree” from the president when the position was created, the Washington-based judge said in her written opinion. Giving a president the power to fire the special counsel without cause would amount to “a constitutional license to bully officials in the executive branch into doing his will,” Jackson said.

The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal shortly after the ruling was handed down.

Trump fired Dellinger without explanation on Feb. 7 even though the law that created his job specified he can only be dismissed for cause, such as negligence. The legal fight with Dellinger was the first that Trump took to the nation’s highest court since he began his second term, which has been marked by a torrent of lawsuits challenging his bid to transform the government and assert sweeping presidential powers.

The US Supreme Court previously denied Trump’s request to immediately lift the judge’s earlier temporary restraining order against Dellinger’s firing. The justices deferred acting on his appeal, but didn’t reject it outright.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Dellinger was nominated by former President Joe Biden to lead the special counsel office and was confirmed by the US Senate in February 2024 for a five-year term. He is among several independent agency officials who are suing Trump over his push to oust them.

The Trump administration’s acting solicitor general told the Supreme Court in a Feb. 26 filing that an earlier decision by Jackson to briefly extend the TRO helped underscore the need for the justices to intervene. The government pointed to Dellinger’s move on Feb. 24 to publicly oppose the firing of other federal workers, saying his actions undermined the president’s authority.

During a hearing on the injunction, Jackson asked a Justice Department lawyer why a president should be permitted to fire the head of the whistleblower agency without cause, given that the position was created by Congress specifically to prevent that from happening and to ensure accountability and independence.

The judge said that if the law is “unsatisfactory to the current president, isn’t the remedy to marshal congressional support to change it as opposed to disregard it?”

When Jackson issued her earlier TRO, she said Dellinger’s firing “plainly” went against US law. The Trump administration didn’t provide any reason for his firing, she said, even though the law requires that the person in that position could only be removed “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The case is Dellinger v. Bessent, 25-cv-385, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington). The Supreme Court case, Bessent v. Dellinger, hasn’t yet been assigned a case number.

(Updates with detail from the judge’s ruling.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net

Virginia Van Natta, Shamim Adam

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