SCOTUS Folds on First Appeal of New Term, Doesn’t Support Trump’s Effort to Clean House

The Supreme Court punted on whether or not President Donald Trump is allowed to dismiss Hampton Dellinger, the head of a federal whistleblower protection office, marking the latest development in one of the various legal battles surrounding the new administration’s government reform efforts.

Its decision on Friday comes after the administration filed an emergency appeal requesting that members of the Supreme Court overrule a lower court’s decision to reinstall Dellinger, according to The Hill.

Dellinger, a Biden appointee, leads the Office of Special Counsel.

He is in charge of prosecuting misconduct and safeguarding whistleblowers.

The Supreme Court “held in abeyance” the application, meaning Dellinger can remain in his position, at least until the lower court’s decision expires on Wednesday.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said, they would have denied the application entirely.

But conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito disagreed with their liberal colleagues, saying they would have greenlit the application.

Gorsuch reasoned that a federal judge “effectively commanded the president and other executive branch officials to recognize and work with someone whom the president sought to remove from office,” according to NBC News.

Trump has attempted to fire several federal employees in the first month of his new administration.

Members of his team have voiced frustration about federal judges blocking their efforts to fire workers, block federal funds while handling waste and fraud, and dismantle certain agencies like USAID.

The administration will likely face many more lawsuits like the one from Dellinger, who challenged his firing after Trump dismissed him on Feb. 7, according to The Hill.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris contended that the judge who granted a temporary order reinstating Dellinger was violating the principle of the separation of powers.

“When a district court crosses a constitutional red line and purports to bar the President from replacing an agency head he does not want to entrust with executive power — potentially for up to a month — this Court can and should intervene,” she wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court.

But Joshua Matz, an attorney for Dellinger, claimed that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction at the moment.

“That rule protects core judicial interests in orderly administration and sound deliberation; it also avoids needless inter-branch conflict and premature escalation of politically fraught disputes,” Matz said.

“But as evidenced by this very case — which reached the Supreme Court less than six days after it was first filed — the government now prefers a new arrangement,” he added.

“To accept its theory and grant its request for relief would be to invite more of the same: a rocket docket straight to this Court, even as high-stakes emergency litigation proliferates across the country.”

Harris meanwhile said, per NBC, that the Supreme Court “should not allow the judiciary to govern by temporary restraining order and supplant the judicial accountability the Constitution ordains.”

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