Judge temporarily reinstalls fired head of whistleblower protection office
A federal judge temporarily reinstalled the head of the Office of the Special Counsel, allowing Hampton Dellinger to return to his post after he was fired Friday by President Trump.
The order from Judge Amy Berman Jackson temporarily rebuffs Dellinger's firing, allowing him to return to work through the end of the day Thursday.
Dellinger sued Monday after he said he was fired from his post 'in a one-sentence email,' removing him from an office that helps protect whistleblowers.
Dellinger, a Biden appointee, said the move violates his appointment to a five-year term in the office.
The OSC provides another avenue for whistleblowers to report concerns about government wrongdoing and works to protect them from reprisal. It also responds to potential violations of the Hatch Act, the law that guards against electioneering by federal employees.
Dellinger's attorneys argue his firing violates laws stating he may only be removed for cause, while undercutting the very agency designed to review a growing list of other recent firings.
'The recent spate of terminations of protected civil service employees under the new presidential administration has created controversies, both about the lawfulness of these actions and about potential retaliation against whistleblowers. The OSC is statutorily tasked with receiving such reports, investigating them, and taking appropriate action,' the suit says.
Jackson did not weigh in on the merits of the litigation, nodding to prior court cases in describing it as a 'first blush' of the case.
'Hampton Dellinger shall continue to serve as the Special Counsel of the Office of Special Counsel, the position he occupied at 7:22 p.m. on Friday, February 7, 2025, when he received an email from the President, and the defendants may not deny him access to the resources or materials of that office or recognize the authority of any other person as Special Counsel,' she wrote.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Odious New Demand of the Civil Service: Loyalty Oaths
The 1939 Hatch Act prohibits government employees from using their position to engage in partisan activity, and prohibits their membership in any organization that advocates the overthrow of the United States. At the dawn of the Cold War, President Harry Truman used the latter provision to authorize investigations of government employees concerning their loyalty to their country, and also the administration of oaths declaring such loyalty. The Truman loyalty program, which spread to the states and to private organizations, led to the firing of many people who were either innocent of disloyalty or who had previously belonged to communist or communist-affiliated organizations (as had many intellectuals during the Great Depression) but refused to endanger others by naming them to the authorities. The program was a catastrophe for civil liberties. Still, the stated goal, however ghastly its application, was defensible: Federal employees were expected to be loyal to the United States and not to its Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. Now loyalty oaths are back; the Trump White House is imposing them on already-beleaguered civil servants. Only this time Trump is violating the Hatch Act by demanding that they be partisan, and by requiring that employees be loyal not to the United States but to Donald Trump. The 47th president has achieved the impossible. He's making Truman's loyalty program look good. To apply for a civil service job, you click onto this website. The Office of Management and Budget, for example, is looking for an economist. (It could use one!) The job pays in the range of $120,579 to $156,755, and an undergraduate degree in economics or its rough equivalent appears to be a minimal requirement. Your education must be at an accrediting institution recognized by the Education Department, which as of Wednesday looks like a problem for a Columbia PhD, and may soon be a problem for a Harvard PhD. Our prospective OMB economist has to fill out this questionnaire. The questions are fairly anodyne and have to do with reasonable-sounding job requirements. Are you able to analyze 'economic resource allocations, structure, and the behavior of specific sectors'? Do you have experience presenting research and analysis to senior officials? Are you competent to review congressional testimony to be given by your boss? According to a May 29 memo by the White House Office of Personnel Management, this questionnaire will soon be expanded to include a loyalty test. Our prospective OMB economist will have to answer some variation on the following question: 'How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.' It is conceivable that this might be an appropriate question to pose to a political appointee. Trump already makes applicants to political positions grovel in all sorts of humiliating ways. 'What part of President Trump's campaign message is most appealing to you and why?' When was your 'MAGA revelation'? The purpose is to privilege cultish loyalty over basic competence, and on the evidence the screeners have done a splendid job. But civil servants are not supposed to be screened based on political loyalty. Even under normal presidents, an executive order is a set of directions to an agency chief, not to rank-and-file civil servants. The agency chief directs civil servants to convert these directions into a proposed rule. The proposal is then put out for public comment to find out whether the rule (and perhaps the executive order requiring it) is faulty. The rule is then finalized, acquiring the force of law. Only then is a civil servant required to follow it. As I say, that's how it works under a normal president. Under the aberration that is Donald Trump, executive orders often have no role other than to express Trump's crotchets, partisan or otherwise. When they call for action, they often violate existing law and/or the Constitution (to which federal hires must also pledge loyalty). One executive order instructed the attorney general not to enforce, for 75 days, a congressionally-enacted ban on TikTok. The delay was later renewed twice, and will likely be renewed again this month, even though the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban. Civil servants aren't supposed to choose between upholding executive-branch policies and upholding Supreme Court decisions. OPM wants to make this choice explicit. Another executive order commanded government agencies not to issue documents recognizing the citizenship of children born in the United States to noncitizens, even though the Constitution states that such children are 'natural born citizens.' Rather surprisingly, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments about this. If, as expected, it rules against Trump, civil servants will once again be compelled to choose between Trump and the Supreme Court, which amounts to choosing between Trump and the Constitution. That's just executive orders. How would our prospective OMB economist support Trump's plans to annex Greenland, or make Canada the 51st state, or rename the Gulf of Mexico? How would this person help Trump reorder cryptocurrency regulations to maximize the Trump family's participation in this exciting if dubious new financial industry? How would our OMB applicant support his president's conclusion that Taylor Swift is no longer 'HOT'? I'm going to have a real problem getting this OMB job. I went to Harvard, I didn't major in Economics, I've never reviewed anybody's congressional testimony except to criticize it in print, I oppose the Trump executive orders described above and plenty more, and I hadn't noticed Taylor Swift ever stopped being HOT. It's probably better that I don't work for OMB, not only for me (Russell Vought would be my boss!) but also for America. Also, I like the job I have now. So I can't say it's any kind of tragedy that the new requirements screen me out. But it's easy to imagine plenty of people who would be ideal for this job but who can't stomach pledging loyalty to the most corrupt president in United States history. It is correspondingly hard to imagine anybody willing to take the required oath who would be even minimally competent. The Hatch Act was passed to prevent such abuses; so were the Pendleton Civil Service Act and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (both ignored by the Trump's 'Schedule F' initiative). Harry Truman subjected the civil service to considerable stress when he imposed his loyalty program. Lives were ruined. But the fallout from Trump's loyalty program will probably be worse.
Axios
5 days ago
- Axios
How Boston remembers Anthony Burns, a man forcefully returned to slavery
On this day 171 years ago, federal officials escorted a man in chains downtown to remove him from Massachusetts. Anthony Burns, then age 20, had escaped bondage in Virginia only to be forcefully returned. Why it matters: Burns' arrest became a flashpoint for Boston at a time when the nation was starkly divided, and historical reenactments and discussions are keeping his legacy alive nearly two centuries later. Between the lines: The nation was starkly divided over slavery. Depending on whom you asked, Burns was either kidnapped by a Virginia slave owner with the help of federal officials or returned to his rightful owner, per National Park Service archives. Anti-slavery activists debated whether the Fugitive Slave Act or a "higher law" should take precedence in a state that had abolished slavery decades earlier, says Shawn Quigley, lead ranger for the National Parks of Boston. State of play: National Park Service rangers in Boston revive that debate in their town meeting programming, including a recent reenactment of a May 26, 1854, meeting anti-slavery activists held in Faneuil Hall. Rangers pass out cards and ask the audience to deliver various arguments, Quigley says. The latest event was at the Old South Meeting House, with support from Revolutionary Space, but the Burns events will resume weekly once a restoration project at Faneuil Hall wraps up later this month. What they're saying: "The history of Faneuil Hall in Boston is not just the American Revolution, and it's a continuation of the American Revolution," Quigley tells Axios. Flashback: While activists debated in Faneuil Hall, they got word that a group of radical abolitionists tried to break down the courthouse entrance to rescue Burns. The abolitionists failed, and a federal marshal was fatally shot. Burns lost his case in court, but the day he was removed from Boston surrounded by federal troops, more than 50,000 people in Boston protested — equivalent to nearly half of the city's population at the time, Quigley says. A far smaller coalition led by the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston tracked down Burns and paid for his freedom in 1855. Burns returned to Boston briefly before studying at Oberlin College in Ohio and becoming a pastor in Canada. Today, the nation is again divided over its collective identity. Now, instead referring to slave catchers, activists are calling immigration agents " kidnappers," like in the arrest of Tufts international student Rümeysa Öztürk, while supporters hail the detention of pro-Palestinian protesters and call them terrorists. Americans nationwide, including in Massachusetts, can't agree on immigration policies, LGBTQ+ issues, or diversity, equity and inclusion efforts — all at a time when the federal government is embattled over federally funded research, its workforce and national parks resources. National Parks of Boston workers, including Quigley, wouldn't discuss the current political climate, citing restrictions under the Hatch Act. What Quigley did say is that he wants people to consider the programming like the Burns discussions as an example of how the nation's revolutionary spirit has persisted after all these years.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Trump's pick for a key watchdog role is irresponsibly unqualified for the job
Picking Paul Ingrassia to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is not like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. It's more like setting fire to the whole farm. On Thursday, President Donald Trump nominated the former far-right podcast host to lead the important albeit little-known federal agency office. OSC is not to be confused with the special counsel position recently occupied by Jack Smith, who was appointed under federal regulations by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump for alleged violations of criminal law. Instead, OSC is an independent agency created by Congress as part of the Civil Service Reform Act in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The office protects whistleblowers and other federal workers from unlawful employment practices. OSC also enforces the Hatch Act, the law that bars political activity in the federal workplace. The nature of the work demands an experienced investigator who is scrupulously apolitical. Ingrassia is anything but. The 30-year-old Ingrassia has been a lawyer for only three years. He previously worked at the Claremont Institute, the same far-right think tank that brought us John Eastman, a key alleged architect of the 2020 election's fake elector scheme. According to its website, Claremont is currently 'working to undermine the Left's hold over America's institutions and conscience.' Ingrassia doesn't have the legal experience for the role. But he has something more important, at least for this administration. Early in Trump's second term, Ingrassia served as the president's liaison to the Justice Department, where he referred to himself as Trump's 'eyes and ears,' according to NBC News. He was reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security after he reportedly clashed with DOJ officials by pushing to hire candidates with 'exceptional loyalty' to Trump, reports ABC News. His views on the Jan. 6 riot are extreme, even by MAGA standards. In December, Ingrassia called for not only pardons of the Jan. 6 defendants, but also for $1 million per family in reparations. He advocated for Trump to 'expressly name, in a public proclamation, any judge and prosecutor involved in the J6 scam — and call on them to resign from their offices, and pressure Congress to undertake impeachment proceedings against them if they do not cooperate.' Ingrassia also urged Congress to make Jan. 6 a national holiday to place 'the day's events in their proper historical context: as a peaceful protest against a great injustice affecting our electoral system.' Ingrassia has referred to former Vice President Mike Pence as a traitor who belongs in 'the ninth circle of hell.' Of course, all private citizens are entitled to express their opinions, but someone who is either as delusional or sycophantic as Ingrassia is, in my opinion, simply unfit to lead an agency that is tasked with enforcing nonpartisanship. In February, Trump fired the prior head of OSC, Hampton Dellinger, a Joe Biden appointee who was only one year into a five-year term set by Congress. Dellinger challenged his removal, alleging it violated a federal law that prohibits termination except for 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.' A court had found Dellinger's dismissal unlawful, but Dellinger dropped his lawsuit when an appeals court declined to reinstate him. Trump's move to effectively neuter OSC may be in response to the agency's oversight during his first term, when investigators found that 13 senior administration officials violated the Hatch Act by campaigning while conducting official government business. A loyalist at the helm of the agency could help Trump avoid similar findings. What's more, without an independent watchdog in charge, whistleblowers may be reluctant to come forward with complaints of fraud, waste and abuse at federal agencies. Federal employees will also lose their advocate in cases of prohibited personnel practices, such as discrimination, coercing political activity or violations of our merit system in the civil service. This move threatens the integrity and efficiency of our civil service. The selection of Ingrassia to lead OSC rivals the nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. attorney in Washington. Trump ultimately withdrew Martin's nomination after he failed to earn support from key Republican senators. Martin now leads the Justice Department's 'Weaponization Working Group' and serves as Trump's pardon attorney, where he has already processed two dozen pardons that include corrupt public officials, business executives and Trump supporters. Last week, Martin posted on social media, 'No MAGA left behind.' Like the U.S. attorney position, the head of the Office of Special Counsel must be confirmed by the Senate. For the sake of our federal workforce and the important work they do for our country, let's hope this nomination meets the same fate as Martin's. This article was originally published on
