FILE PHOTO: 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 | Via Reuters
A federal appeals court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove a top federal ethics watchdog from his office while a lawsuit challenging his termination plays out.
The order permitting the removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel came four days after a federal district court judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s attempt to boot Dellinger was “unlawful.”
However, the order by a unanimous three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left open the question of whether Dellinger will be able to return to his position pending the outcome of the Trump administration’s appeal in the case.
The panel, which said it would issue an opinion explaining its order “in due course,” also expedited the case, setting a briefing schedule that will end April 11.
“The Clerk is directed to calendar this case for oral argument this term on the first appropriate date following the completion of briefing,” the panel wrote.
Since being filed by Dellinger, the case has already landed in the lap of the Supreme Court once, albeit briefly. And the high court is likely to have the final say on whether Trump has the power to dismiss the special counsel.
Dellinger, who had a five-year term, was appointed as special counsel in March 2024 by then-President Joe Biden, and later confirmed by the Senate.
Trump fired Dellinger by email last month as part of a wide-ranging effort to reduce the number of federal workers.
Dellinger’s office is responsible for protecting federal employees who act as whistleblowers about illegal or unethical conduct.
Dellinger sued the Trump administration in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., over his termination.
He argued his dismissal was illegal because of a federal law that says special counsels can only be removed by the president “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance of office.”
District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Feb. 10 issued an order barring Dellinger’s removal as the case continued.
The Trump administration then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which in a 2-1 ruling declined to overturn Berman’s order.
The Department of Justice then asked the Supreme Court to rule that Trump had the power to fire Dellinger. But the Supreme Court declined to do so, for now, letting the case wind its way through lower federal courts.
Berman then ruled on Saturday that Trump’s firing was unlawful.
“The Special Counsel’s job is to look into and expose unethical or unlawful practices directed at federal civil servants, and to help ensure that whistleblowers who disclose fraud, waste, and abuse on the part of government agencies can do so without suffering reprisals,” Jackson wrote in her ruling.
“It would be ironic, to say the least, and inimical to the ends furthered by the statute if the Special Counsel himself could be chilled in his work by fear of arbitrary or partisan removal,” Jackson wrote.
The DOJ immediately asked the Court of Appeals in an emergency motion to stay Jackson’s ruling pending the outcome of its appeal of that decision.
In its order Wednesday, the three judges on the appeals court panel said the Trump administration had “satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal.”
“This order gives effect to the removal of appellee [Dellinger] from his position as Special Counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel,” the order noted.
In the weeks since Trump first tried to fire Dellinger, the special counsel had opposed the president’s efforts to fire probationary employees across several federal agencies.
