A federal judge in Washington on Saturday blocked President Trump from ousting the leader of a federal watchdog agency, saying that the effort to remove the official without due cause had violated the law.
In an order on Saturday evening, Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a permanent injunction against the government, allowing Hampton Dellinger to remain the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistle-blowers.
The order required the Trump administration to recognize Mr. Dellinger’s authority in that position, barring it from taking any action to “treat him in any way as if he has been removed” or otherwise interfere with his work.
The administration immediately moved to challenge the ruling, starting an appeals process that appeared likely to end at the Supreme Court.
In a 67-page opinion explaining the order, Judge Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stressed the unique responsibilities Congress gave the office when it was created under a 1978 law. She noted its central role in protecting whistle-blowers in the federal government, a role that she said would be compromised if Mr. Dellinger were allowed to be removed without a cause stipulated under the law.
“It is his independence that qualifies him to watch over the time-tested structure that is supposed to bar executive officials from taking federal jobs from qualified individuals and handing them out to political allies — a system that Congress found intolerable over a century ago,” she wrote. “The position would be entirely ineffective if the special counsel were to be compelled to operate with the sword of at-will removal hanging over his head.”
