Official Terminated by Trump Ends Legal Fight After Court Ruling

Hampton Dellinger had alleged his termination was unlawful.

Special Counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger poses for a portrait in an undated handout image. U.S. Office of Special Counsel/Handout via Reuters

The fired head of an executive branch agency said on March 6 he’s ending his legal battle against President Donald Trump’s administration.

Hampton Dellinger, who had been the head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), said he was ending litigation he lodged over his termination due to a federal appeals court siding with Trump.

Three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Wednesday that Trump could fire Dellinger.

“This new ruling means that OSC will be run by someone totally beholden to the President for the months that would pass before I could get a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court,” Dellinger said in a statement.

While Dellinger said he thinks the appeals court ruling was erroneous, he described his odds of ultimately prevailing in his case as long.

“I strongly disagree with the circuit court’s decision, but I accept and will abide by it. That’s what Americans do,” he said.

Dellinger was nominated in 2023 as special counsel by President Joe Biden. The U.S. Senate confirmed him the following year.

Trump fired Dellinger on Feb. 7. No reason was listed in the termination notice.

Dellinger sued on Feb. 10, pointing to a federal law that states the special counsel can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Government lawyers argued that the president can fire the heads of executive branch agencies at will, or without cause.

Dellinger was reinstated by a federal judge the same day he filed his lawsuit, and the same judge ruled on March 1 that the law in question is constitutional.

Dellinger, in recent weeks, has filed complaints against the Trump administration for firing probationary workers and won the reinstatement of thousands of the employees.

Government lawyers appealed the judge’s ruling, pointing to Dellinger’s complaints.

“Plaintiff’s exercise of executive powers contrary to the President’s wishes, leading to an order restraining other executive actions that are consistent with the President’s wishes—and his threat to continue in this vein—underscore the gravity and irreparable character of the ongoing harm that the district court’s order is causing,” they wrote.

The circuit court, in its brief order, said the government had met the threshold for a stay pending appeal. The judges said they would issue an opinion detailing their decision in the future.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

A spokesman for the OSC told The Epoch Times in an email that in the wake of the decision, the office is awaiting word on who will serve as acting OSC.

“In the interim, we have a leadership structure in place with Principal Deputy Special Counsel Karen Gorman as the senior career official in the office,” the spokesman said, “and our day-to-day work continues within that structure.”