Supreme Court rules against Trump--at least for now

The Supreme Court, in its first decision on President Trump’s use of executive power in his second term, ruled that he cannot, for now, remove a government lawyer who leads the watchdog agency that protects whistle-blowers, reported The New York Times.

But the court’s brief, unsigned order indicated that it may soon return to the issue, noting that a trial judge’s temporary restraining order shielding the lawyer, Hampton Dellinger, is set to expire next week.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said that they would have rejected the Trump administration’s request for Supreme Court intervention outright. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., filed a dissent.

The majority, Justice Gorsuch wrote, presumably acted as it did because temporary restraining orders like the one in place in the case generally cannot be appealed — that is, he said, it “may not yet have ripened into an appealable order.”

“Respectfully,” he added, “I believe that it has and that each additional day where the order stands only serves to confirm the point.”

The court’s order came amid a blitz of executive actions, including ones seeking to remove thousands of federal employees, many of them in roles long thought protected from summary dismissal.

Mr. Dellinger has served as head of the Office of Special Counsel, which was created by Congress in 1978 to protect government whistle-blowers. It is unrelated to the special counsels appointed by the Justice Department.

The law says the special counsel must be confirmed by the Senate, serves for a five-year term and “may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

Mr. Dellinger, who was confirmed last year, was fired by an administration official in a terse email on Feb. 7. It did not say why.

He sued, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington entered a temporary restraining order allowing Mr. Dellinger to keep his job for two weeks while she considered whether to enter a preliminary injunction. The order expires on Feb. 26.

Temporary restraining orders, as the name suggests, are provisional, in place for brief periods and generally meant to preserve the status quo while judges get their bearings. Preliminary injunctions are more lasting judicial commands generally issued after substantial briefing and a hearing.

Justice Gorsuch wrote that there were powerful reasons to “look behind the label” and treat the temporary restraining order in Mr. Dellinger’s case as a preliminary injunction, which can be appealed.

One reason, he wrote, was that the judge had done something extraordinary. “The court effectively commanded the president and other executive branch officials to recognize and work with someone whom the president sought to remove from office,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.

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