Laura Ross, a member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors who was defying President Trump’s firing, has surrendered and resigned.

Ms. Ross ousted herself in a letter last week and withdrew from a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, saying she was relinquishing her seat after a monthslong battle to keep it.

She did not say why she was giving up.

Mr. Trump moved to fire her and two other members of the five-person board in April. They sued to keep their seats, and that case is pending, but a judge declined to order them reinstated while the matter developed.

The three said they were remaining anyway, which led to the Justice Department filing its own lawsuit this month, asking a judge to formally kick them out.

Ms. Ross’ departure leaves the other two — Thomas Rothman and Diane Kaplan — still fighting.

CPB’s website still lists them as members, alongside Ruby Calvert and Liz Sembler, whom Mr. Trump has not fired.

The directors argued that because CPB is an independent operation, they’re immune from presidential firing.

CPB’s chief activities are funding public radio and TV stations.

Under the law, it’s not considered a government agency but rather a nonprofit chartered by Congress. It does receive more than $500 million in federal taxpayer funding to dole out to those stations.

Mr. Trump has signed legislation canceling $1.1 billion that had been allocated to CPB to distribute to National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and member stations nationwide.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.