In an ongoing legal battle over President Donald Trump’s authority to dismiss the special counsel, a federal appeals court has ruled in favour of the Trump administration, allowing the immediate removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the Trump administration, overturning a previous ruling that reinstated Dellinger. The decision is expected to be appealed.
A federal judge in Washington had earlier blocked Trump’s attempt to remove Dellinger, stating that the dismissal was unlawful. Dellinger had sued last month after being fired, arguing that special counsels can only be removed by the president “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Judge Amy Berman Jackson, appointed by President Barack Obama, had temporarily reinstated him while the case proceeded.
The ruling comes as another federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s broader efforts to fire federal employees en masse. In a separate case, a judge in San Francisco ruled that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) lacked the authority to direct mass terminations of probationary federal employees.
US District Judge William Alsup ordered the government to reverse layoffs, criticising OPM for overstepping its authority. “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees at another agency,” Alsup said, according to The Washington Post.
The decision deals a blow to Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Musk, through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, has pushed for drastic reductions, including performance reviews that critics argue amount to forced layoffs.
Despite the court ruling, uncertainty remains over whether dismissed employees will be reinstated or if future layoffs will be blocked. An evidentiary hearing is set for March 13.