The Supreme Court neglects Trump’s effort to eliminate the head of the surveillance agency

Emergency file

The court issued its decision in Besent v. Dellinger Friday night. (Katie Barlow)

The Supreme Court left on Friday an order of a federal judge in Washington, DC, who instructed President Donald Trump to temporarily restore the head of an independent federal agency in charge of protecting reprisal complainants. The judges did not act at the request of the Trump administration to block the order of the American district judge Amy Berman Jackson, who had restored Hampton Dellinger as head of the Special Advisor Office for 14 days, as of February 12. On the other hand, the judges explained in a brief order, put the government application waiting until the order of Jackson expires on February 26.

Judge Neil Gorsuch, accompanied by Judge Samuel Alito, disincted from the Court’s decision not to act at the request of the Trump administration.

Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated, without explanation, that they would have denied the government’s request.

Friday’s order was the first time that the Supreme Court acted at the request of the Trump administration to intervene in one of the dozens of demands filed to challenge the actions taken by Trump and its administration since its inauguration on January 20.

The Special Advisor Office was created following the Watergate scandal and is intended to protect federal government employees from activities that are prohibited in the Federal Labor Force, such as discrimination, inappropriate hiring practices and, in particular, retaliation. According to the federal law that the agency creates, the president can only eliminate the head of the office, who turns a period of five years, for “inefficiency, negligence of duty or embezzlement in office.”

Hampton Dellinger was appointed to serve as head of the Special Advisor Office in 2024 by then President Joe Biden. On February 7, Dellinger was fired in an email that did not quote any reason for elimination.

Dellinger went to the Federal Court to challenge his dismissal. On February 12, Jackson issued a temporary restriction order that Dellinger restored for 14 days.

A Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, refused to intervene. On February 15, he ruled that he lacked the power to review the appeal of the Trump administration because, unlike preliminary mandates, which provide relief while the litigation continues unless they are revoked, temporary restriction orders cannot generally not be appealed.

The United States Attorney General Sarah Harris arrived at the Supreme Court on Sunday night, asking the judges to intervene. She argued that, as a general rule, the president can eliminate senior officials from his position when he wishes. He argued that this conclusion is reinforced, by recent decisions of the Supreme Court that maintains that the restrictions on the president’s power to eliminate the heads of the Office of Financial Protection of the Consumer and the Federal Housing Finance Agency violate the Constitution.

It doesn’t matter, Harris added, which Jackson issued a temporary restriction order that restored Dellinger to office. Harris told the judges a temporary restriction order like this, said Harris, because “it is deeply entered into the main concerns of the executive branch.”

Harris said that since the opening of the president in January, the district courts have issued a variety of tro that block the president’s initiatives. If the Trump administration cannot appeal to those tro, he warned, “it is more likely that the district courts will be attracted to the most aggressive tro issuance.” “In fact,” he continued, according to Dellinger’s theory, “the remarkable court order of a district court against Cambodia bombing during the Vietnam War would have been not reviewable if it had simply been issued as a 28 -day tro.”

Dellinger urged the judges to leave Jackson’s request instead. He warned that considering the appeal of the Government would open the gates to more appeals from temporary restriction orders, creating a “rocket file directly to this Court, even as high -risk emergency litigation”, such as the challenge to freezing funds for programs administered by the United States Agency for International Development and an order of a federal judge in New York that prohibits members of the “Department of Efficiency of the Efficiency of the Government “access data in the Treasury Department:” Proliferate throughout the country “.

In addition, Dellinger added, Jackson’s order simply leaves the status quo in place, while “extremely accelerated procedures” to solve the progress of the dispute. Jackson could finally decide the case “so that he avoids any need for the intervention of this court (or at least create an adequate record for it).”

In a brief order, the Court, on the one hand, pointed out the granting of the Trump administration that the Supreme Court “generally does not have a jurisdiction of appeal on” temporary restriction orders. On the other hand, he observed, Dellinger emphasized that the temporary restriction order “expires on February 26,” when Jackson has scheduled a hearing on his motion for a preliminary judicial order. Taking into account both factors, the Court put the government application until February 26.

In an opinion of three pages, Gorsuch (united by Alito) suggested that the Court’s decision not to act according to the government’s request at this time reflected “a concern that the tro has not yet matched in an appealable order.” In Gorsuch’s opinion, however, he had done it. Gorsuch questioned whether Jackson had the power to order Dellinger’s reinstatement, because the courts would not have had the power to do so at the beginning of the history of the United States.

This article was Originally published in Howe On The Court.