The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 21 declined to allow the Trump administration to immediately fire Office of Special Counsel chief Hampton Dellinger.
This is the first time that the Supreme Court has weighed in on an action taken by the second Trump administration.
The Trump administration filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Feb. 16, asking the justices to undo a federal district court’s temporary restraining order blocking the termination of Dellinger’s employment.
Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson determined that the court will hold a hearing on Feb. 26 regarding Dellinger’s request to upgrade the temporary restraining order to a preliminary injunction.
The Supreme Court ruled that the government’s request to rescind the block will be “held in abeyance,” or delayed, until Feb. 26. At that time, the high court may take further action.
The Trump administration argued it had the authority to fire Dellinger even though he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Feb. 16 to allow it to fire the head of the agency that protects whistleblowers after lower courts said it could not.
The application said the U.S. Constitution “empowers the President to remove, at will, the single head of an agency, such as the Special Counsel.”
Federal district courts do not have the authority “to reinstate principal officers,” according to the filing.
The lower court has “erred in ways that threaten the separation of powers” of the U.S. government, the document said. The separation of powers is a constitutional doctrine that divides the government into three branches to prevent any single branch from accumulating too much power.
Dellinger argued that he may be terminated only for misconduct during his fixed-term appointment. Dellinger said a brief emailed notice he received on Feb. 7 informed him he was being fired and did not explain why.
New administrations routinely fire government officials without providing a reason.
In its new order, the Supreme Court noted that the Trump administration acknowledged the high court “typically does not have appellate jurisdiction” over temporary restraining orders. The order also noted that the administration argued the high court should take up the case to protect “the core executive power” that is being restrained, a reference to the president’s ability to fire federal officials.
Given the administration’s position and the fact that the district judge will consider Dellinger’s request for a preliminary injunction on Feb. 26, the Supreme Court ruled that it would hold the request to lift the temporary restraining order in abeyance until Feb. 26.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated they would deny the government’s application. They did not explain why.
Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from the high court’s decision to hold the application in abeyance. Justice Samuel Alito joined his dissent.
Gorsuch wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision to delay acting on the application was related to “a concern that the [temporary restraining order] may not yet have ripened into an appealable order.” In legal parlance, a claim is ripe when it is ready for a court to rule on.
Gorsuch expressed his opinion that the case was ripe and his own concern that the district court judge lacked the authority to order Dellinger reinstated because in early American history, courts would not have had that power.
Gorsuch wrote he would have vacated Jackson’s order and sent the case back to that court to be reconsidered in light of that historical context.
The Trump administration has met a series of legal challenges to its policies.
Several lower courts have granted temporary restraining orders preventing the administration from taking various actions, such as ending birthright citizenship for children born to noncitizens on U.S. soil and blocking funding for some transgender medical procedures for minors.
On the other hand, several lower courts have allowed the administration to fire employees and to let the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a cost-cutting government entity, gain access to federal information systems for audits.
