The Supreme Court has rebuffed President Trump’s initial attempt to expand his firing powers, as the first case involving the new administration’s aggressive agenda reached the high court.
The justices on Friday allowed special counsel Hampton Dellinger to remain in his job, where he serves as the government’s top cop for whistleblower protections and Hatch Act violations, while lower courts hear his challenge to Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire him.
That action was part of a flurry of rulings that saw Mr. Trump begin to make some headway with federal judges, though he still has an overall losing record.
A judge in Virginia rejected one lawsuit that sought an injunction to keep the Department of Government Efficiency out of the private personnel files at the Office of Personnel Management and secret payroll files at the Treasury Department.
But another judge in New York sided with challengers on a very similar case involving the Treasury Department data.
Those mixed results have become all-too-common as the courts grapple with a flood of lawsuits and, often, a lack of clarity about what Mr. Trump and his team are actually doing.
In one case in the District of Columbia, Judge Carl Nichols lifted a previous hold he’d placed on plans to carry out a mass reorganization of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The judge said USAID employees upset over being placed on administrative leave have to challenge those decisions through regular channels such as the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Judge Nichols also said worries that the moves are a precursor to shutting down the entire agency are just speculation right now.
“The government has reiterated that its intent in placing USAID employees on administrative leave is to conduct a thorough ‘audit’ of the agency’s spending,” he wrote.
On Sunday, the administration announced that most USAID staffers worldwide would be put on leave and 2,000 U.S.-based staff positions would be eliminated.
In New York, Judge Jeannette A. Vargas reaffirmed her previous blockade on DOGE accessing Treasury systems, saying they contain sensitive personal information and are “critical to the financial infrastructure of the nation.”
“The public interest is plainly served by requiring the Treasury Department to ensure, to the maximum extent possible, the security of these systems and the information contained therein,” she wrote.
In a separate case Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr., who sits in Virginia, agreed that the systems contain sensitive data but he said there’s no evidence right now that DOGE employees having access to it poses a danger.
“Plaintiffs’ fears of future harm are much too speculative,” he ruled in shooting down a request for an injunction blocking the DOGE from access to Treasury and OPM data.
The issue, like so many other challenges to Mr. Trump, could eventually wind up with the Supreme Court.
The justices’ first foray into Trump 2.0 saw them take a cautious approach, to the detriment of the president.
He had asked them to block a lower court ruling keeping Mr. Dellinger on the job while the firing case proceeds. His legal team said a president deserves to have his team in place, particularly in the critical early days of an administration.
Mr. Dellinger’s lawyers argue that since he heads an “independent agency,” he can only be fired for cause. Mr. Trump offered no such justification, Mr. Dellinger contends.
A lower court had issued a temporary restraining order against Mr. Trump, and the Supreme Court left that in place for now, saying it will expire soon anyway and the case will quickly develop more fully.
Mr. Trump’s firing powers will be one of the biggest tests for the justices, who must grapple with whether to overturn a 90-year-old precedent that appears to limit the president’s ouster abilities when it comes to independent agencies.
The president’s backers say the precedent needs to be overturned.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.