Judge Reverses Trump’s Firing of Federal Appeals Board Chairwoman

The judge, based in Washington, ruled that the firing was unlawful.

Cathy Harris of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board poses as she leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in downtown Washington on March 3, 2025. Mike Scarcella/Reuters

A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday issued an order to reinstate the chairwoman of an appeals board and said she can remain in her position until the end of her term, after she was fired by the Trump administration.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled to re-appoint Cathy Harris, the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and that she “shall continue to serve as a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board until her term expires ... unless she is earlier removed for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office under” Title 5 of the U.S. Code.

Members of the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Office of Budget and Management Director Russell Vought, cannot remove Harris from office “without cause or in any way treating her as having been removed without cause,” the judge wrote, adding they also cannot deny her “access to any of the benefits or resources of her office.”

In a separate memorandum issued Tuesday, Contreras wrote that President Donald Trump’s “attempt to terminate Harris was unlawful” and said that federal law bars the president from removing members of the MSPB without appropriate cause for doing so.

The board that she chairs, according to its website, was set up to protect federal employees from prohibited personnel practices and is an “independent, quasi-judicial” entity within the executive branch.

Lawyers for the Trump administration, in court papers filed last week, argued that as president, Trump has the power to remove any official under the executive branch.

“The MSPB wields executive power and must be accountable to the President through the removal power,” the court papers said, adding that it “can order relief including reinstatement, backpay, and attorney’s fees” as an entity under the executive branch.

Further, they argued that the board “can also exercise authority over other executive agencies by, for example, reviewing rules of the Office of Personnel Management” and potentially has “broad authority to affect management of the Executive Branch workforce.”

Trump terminated Harris, a Democrat, on Feb. 10. Her term was scheduled to run until 2028.

Since the Trump administration took over, it has moved to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees through a variety of means, working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify and resolve wasteful spending and inefficiencies in federal agencies.

Both Trump and adviser Elon Musk, who leads the reform efforts, have said that federal workforce reductions are needed to reduce waste and abuse. Numerous lawsuits have been filed in response to the terminations.

Some employees who have been terminated have appealed their cases to the MSPB. In late February, the board ordered a pause to terminate the employment of six federal workers who were under a probationary period.

“​​Particularly considering the deference that must be afforded to [Office of Special Counsel] at this initial stage, I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice,” the MSPB wrote in its order, issued Feb. 25.

A different federal judge separately ruled on Saturday that Trump’s removal of Office of Special Counsel head Hampton Dellinger was unlawful. That decision was appealed by the Department of Justice.

In response to Contreras’s decision, the administration also filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.