Latest news with #HamptonDellinger
New York Times
7 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Nominates a Former Far-Right Podcast Host to Head an Ethics Watchdog
President Trump on Thursday nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host now serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to a new key role: head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent corruption-fighting agency that safeguards federal whistle-blowers and enforces some ethics laws. The office has had a bumpy ride in the second Trump presidency. In February, Mr. Trump fired the office's head, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger sued to keep his job, was temporarily reinstated by a court order, began investigating complaints arising from the Trump administration's mass firings of federal workers and was removed again in March after an appeals court ruled in the administration's favor. The Office of Special Counsel dropped its inquiry into the mass firings in April. The office had annoyed Mr. Trump during his first term by pursuing allegations of misconduct, resulting in a finding that 13 senior aides had campaigned for his re-election in violation of the law known as the Hatch Act. Before working for Mr. Trump, Mr. Ingrassia hosted a podcast, 'Right on Point,' with his sister, Olivia Ingrassia. In December 2020, as Mr. Trump was contesting his election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the podcast posted on Twitter, 'Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.' Mr. Ingrassia has represented the 'manosphere' influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently facing criminal charges in Romania and Britain, and pushed a false theory that Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. In a Truth Social post on Thursday night, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ingrassia 'a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.' Mr. Ingrassia posted on X that as head of the office, he would 'make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workplace, and Revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.'
CBS News
09-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
What America is losing as President Trump fires independent government watchdogs
President Trump is casting aside those who might stand in his way and among the first to go were at least 20 leaders of federal offices that were created by Congress to hold administrations accountable. You may not know it but, after Watergate, Congress set up a system to audit the executive branch and ensure the rights of federal workers. Those offices became known as watchdogs. Congress has guarded their independence from politics so that no president can use these powerful auditors to punish enemies or hide their own fiascos. But now, for the first time in 44 years, President Trump has fired these officials en masse. One of them is Hampton Dellinger, who has a warning about what America is losing as it's firing the watchdogs. Hampton Dellinger: Going forward you're always gonna have now a person in my position who's gonna be dependent on the President's good graces. That is not how Congress set up the position, that's not how it's been for the past 50 years. But that independence, that protection is gone. Scott Pelley: And the message that sends to the watchdog agencies in general is what? Hampton Dellinger: I don't think we have watchdog agencies anymore. The inspector generals are gone. The head of the Office of Government Ethics is gone. I'm gone. The independent watchdogs who are working on behalf of the American taxpayers, on behalf of military veterans, they've been pushed out. Before Hampton Dellinger was pushed out, he was head of the Office of Special Counsel—no relation to the office of the same name that prosecuted President Trump. Dellinger's office is where federal workers can bring employment complaints. And where so called "whistleblowers," government employees, can report wrongdoing. Scott Pelley: So if a person sees fraud, for example, in the Department of Defense, and they're afraid of telling their supervisor because they think there will be retaliation, they go to you? Hampton Dellinger: They can. And that was a decision not by me, but by Congress, that employees in the Executive Branch who are seeing something going wrong inside of an agency need a safe place to go that's still in the Executive Branch but that is outside of the agency. And it works. A recent report said whistleblowers helped Office of the Special Counsel find $110 million that was owed to veterans and uncovered the overprescription of opioids at a VA clinic. Dellinger is a Democrat, appointed by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate. Hampton Dellinger: My job though was not partisan at all. And my track record I will stand on as someone who has played it by the book. I'm not looking to promote a president's agenda or thwart it. I'm just trying to make sure the laws are followed. Scott Pelley: And you filed cases against the Biden administration? Hampton Dellinger: Time, and time, and time again. Dellinger's present term was supposed to run into 2029. Scott Pelley: What was the first moment that you learned that you had been fired? Hampton Dellinger: A Friday evening, when I got an email from someone I didn't know purporting to be with the White House who said, "You've been terminated. Thank you for your service." And, of course, that email is just flatly inconsistent with the law, which says I can only be terminated for a very good reason. They didn't have a very good reason. They had no reason. Scott Pelley: Nothing? Hampton Dellinger: Nothing. The law says there has to be a reason, specifically one of three, neglect, inefficiency or malfeasance. The termination email said none of that. So, Dellinger sued to keep his job. Hampton Dellinger: I think every American respects the presidency. But I knew that this order, this directive, was unlawful. And ultimately we are a nation of laws. The only reason we have a president is because we have a supreme rule book, the United States Constitution. So as much as we all want the president to succeed it's gotta be within the framework of the law. But the law may have been ignored just four days into Trump's term when he fired 17 inspectors general, all at once, without cause. The inspectors general or "IGs" for short, were auditors of top departments including defense, veterans affairs, and foreign aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Paul Martin was inspector general there. Paul Martin: Over the years and over the decades, we've been independent, apolitical, nonpartisan watchdogs in our agency with the goal of improving the functioning of that agency, to save money, and to look out for the taxpayers. Martin policed billions in foreign aid spending. Trump shut down USAID early and in haste. In the chaos of mass firings emergency aid stopped moving. So, Martin did his job, writing an alert that warned that half a billion dollars in food aid might spoil or be stolen. Paul Martin: We issued the alert on a Monday. On Tuesday, I was terminated. Scott Pelley: What did that tell you? Paul Martin: That someone read our report. Scott Pelley: Have you ever been fired by a president before? Paul Martin: I have not been fired by a president before. Scott Pelley: But some people watching these events say, "Doesn't the president always bring in his own team?" Paul Martin: He may bring his own team in, but there's been an agreement between Congress and administrations over the last 45 years that inspector generals are different. They're chosen to be apolitical, nonpartisan oversight officials in each government agency. And that has been respected from administration to administration. Paul Martin started in IG offices 25 years ago under Bill Clinton. He was inspector general for NASA in Trump's first term and then Biden's. Paul Martin: I have worked over more than six presidents, and I have never had a concern that issuing an audit or an investigation even with what would be perceived as negative findings could impact my employment. Scott Pelley: In these first weeks of the Trump Administration what is happening to these oversight offices? Andrew Bakaj: They're being dismantled and effectively being destroyed. Andrew Bakaj is a former CIA officer and a lawyer who has written federal regulations protecting whistleblowers. David Kligerman: Now it feels like an intentional dismantling. They are going after the things that somebody who knows how to dismantle the system goes after and that's maybe perhaps the scariest part. David Kligerman is a former State Department attorney. Together, they represent whistleblowers for the nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid. Whistleblower Aid represented a client in the first Trump impeachment. Scott Pelley: What is the purpose of firing a Hampton Dellinger or the inspectors general? Andrew Bakaj: It's, in my opinion, to prevent the truth from coming out. The entire purpose of having a Hampton Dellinger or the IG system is to ensure that there's transparency within government. David Kligerman: This is removing the umpires. This is just taking the umpires out of the game. There's no place to go. If you can't go to the Special Counsel or they effectively neuter it, then there's nowhere for you to go. This is a very, very big deal. But not a big deal according to the president. He told reporters on Air Force One that firing the watchdogs is—quote— "a very standard thing to do." He's wrong. No president has fired the heads of the watchdog offices, en masse, in 44 years—that was Reagan when the offices were brand new—and he rehired a third of them. Scott Pelley: And the reason you were given for being fired was what? Cathy Harris: Oh, no reason. The president gave no reason. Why fire Cathy Harris? Possibly because she's on the federal board that hears appeals of fired federal workers-- the very people the Trump administration has been laying off by the tens of thousands. If she left, their avenue of appeal could be blocked at least temporarily. Harris is also fighting for her own job. For now, a judge has reinstated her. Cathy Harris: I swore an oath to the Constitution when I took this job that I would fulfill my term through March 2028. And I believe very deeply in the civil service and in public service. And I just couldn't look myself in the mirror and walk away from this. I'm here to fight. Cathy Harris fights for fired workers, often after receiving theircases from the office of Hampton Dellinger. In his final days on the job, Dellinger worked to restore employment of workers whom, he says, were fired by Trump, illegally. Hampton Dellinger: So much is lost. You're losing talent. You're losing experience. You're losing integrity. You're losing tens of thousands of military veterans who served our country in uniform, who put their lives on the line for America, and who came back enjoying the federal civilian work force. But putting aside all the losses, at the end of the day, it has to be done the right way. If you're gonna fire federal employees, you've gotta do it lawfully. And that's my concern, that these mass firings aren't necessarily in accordance with the law. In February, Dellinger took on the case of 5,000 fired employees of the Agriculture Department. He passed their case to Cathy Harris and her appeals board. Harris stopped the firing, at least temporarily. The Trump administration is still in court to get Harris removed. Cathy Harris: But you've gotta be able to be in this job and do what it takes to uphold the law and not be afraid. Not be afraid you're gonna be fired at any moment if you make a decision that somebody doesn't like. Paul Martin: I think the message to inspector generals is that the oversight of these programs, particularly if they're negative findings, is not welcome anymore. A message loud and clear now, according to former USAID inspector general Paul Martin. Paul Martin: It's not welcome in the administration, this administration, and it's not welcome in this current Congress. Scott Pelley: What should Congress be doing? Paul Martin: Congress created the inspector generals and relied on, for the past 45 years, their findings, and their audits, and investigations to conduct aggressive oversight of any administration's programs. Since the firing of the inspector generals, there has been a deafening silence in Congress as far as pushing back. Scott Pelley: Why are they not speaking? Paul Martin: Unclear. Martin worries that independence lost, might never be regained. Paul Martin: I'm afraid that we've moved on to-- an era in which every administration will come in and assume that they're going to replace all the inspector generals with people of their choice, that the secretary of treasury or the attorney general will get to pick his or her inspector general. And that will turn the independent IG system on its head. Scott Pelley: If your office is beholden to the president, what is lost? Hampton Dellinger: Independence, accountability, a safe place for federal government employee whistleblowers to come to and know that they'll be respected and protected. That's gone. Other watchdogs are suing to challenge the president's power but Hampton Dellinger is ou t. Last week, an order from an appeals court removed him. He told us that taking his fight to the Supreme Court would take months or a year—and by then his whistleblower office would be devastated. Scott Pelley: The Trump administration argued to the court that it needed to, quote, "Put an end to Dellinger's rogue use of executive authority over the President's objections." What's your response to that? Hampton Dellinger: If wanting the rules to be followed is the new definition of going rogue, then call me by that name. I don't think I was going rogue. I think I was being a good American who believes in the rule of law. That's all I was trying to do is make sure the laws are being followed.
Fox News
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
JONATHAN TURLEY: Judge's Special Counsel ruling may be the setback Trump admin was looking for
Late Saturday, Washington D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that President Donald Trump violated federal law in firing Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel. Jackson's decision is forceful, well-written, and arguably wrong under existing precedent. Indeed, it may have just set up an appeal that both presidents and professors have long waited for to reinforce presidential powers. Appointed by President Joe Biden, and the son of the respected liberal scholar and Clinton acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, Hampton Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term beginning in 2024. He sued after receiving an email with a perfunctory termination notice shortly after Trump's inauguration. The various inspector generals were also terminated and, at the time, some of us raised concerns over compliance with underlying federal statutes. The issue was not likely the outcome, but the process for such removals. However, while many objected to the helter-skelter approach to such terminations, there may be a method to this madness. Indeed, this ruling may be precisely what the Trump administration is seeking as the foundation for a major new constitutional challenge. Dellinger's claim is based in large part on the Civil Service Reform Act, which provides that the Special Counsel "may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." 5 U.S.C. 1211(b). The notice gave none of these grounds for the termination even though "inefficiency" and "neglect" are a fairly ambiguous and malleable rationale. Judge Jackson held that the firing clearly violated the controlling statute and that the Act itself was constitutional. She emphasized that, while there are grounds for presidents to claim the power for at-will terminations, those cases have tended to be offices that carry out executive functions. Jackson described the Special Counsel as an essentially harmless office vis-à-vis executive authority. "Special Counsel acts as an ombudsman, a clearinghouse for complaints and allegations, and after looking into them, he can encourage the parties to resolve the matter among themselves," she wrote. "But if that fails, he must direct them elsewhere." She noted that earlier cases supporting the executive power to fire executive officials involved "restrictions on the President's ability to remove an official who wields significant executive authority. The Special Counsel simply does not." Judge Jackson has a good-faith reliance on her narrow reading of existing precedent. However, it is far from conclusive and brushes over some striking conflicts with prior rulings of the Supreme Court. Jackson insisted that a contrary ruling would undermine the very point of the special counsel office, which she identified as its independence. However, that is the very point that has irked both Democratic and Republican presidents for years. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter objected on these grounds. The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel explained that, "[b]ecause the Special Counsel [would] be performing largely executive functions, the Congress [could] not restrict the President's power to remove him." 2 Op. O.L.C. 120, 121 (1978). It is unclear whether the current Supreme Court would agree with an exception for minor or de minimus intrusions. Many scholars and judges believe that a president either has Article II authority to fire executive branch officials or he does not. Notably, there are only four single agency heads who were given tenure protection by Congress: the directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the commissioner of Social Security, and the Special Counsel. In 2020, the Court ruled in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB that Congress had violated Article II by granting tenure protection to that sole agency head, writing: "The CFPB's single-Director structure contravene[d] [Article II's] carefully calibrated system by vesting significant governmental power in the hands of a single individual accountable to no one." Id. at 224. Then, in 2021, in Collins v. Yellen, the Court rejected the same claim as to the director of the FHFA. That opinion came with language that directly opposes Jackson's rationale. The Court found Seila Law to be "all but dispositive" on the question and expressly rejected the argument that this would change depending upon "the nature and breadth of an agency's authority." The Court held that the "[c]ourts are not well-suited to weigh the relative importance of the regulatory and enforcement authorities of disparate agencies." Given these cases, lower courts clearly got the message – a message amplified by President Joe Biden, who appointed Dellinger. On the third "independent" position, the commissioner of Social Security, Biden's Office of Legal Counsel declared that "the best reading of Collins and Seila Law" is that "the President need not heed the Commissioner's statutory tenure protection." Two circuits (the Ninth and Eleventh) have ruled consistently with that interpretation in favor of executive authority to remove such officers. Ultimately, Dellinger can be removed even if this decision stands. The Trump Administration could have easily cited a basis like inefficiency or neglect. The question is why it decided not to do so. Clearly, it could just be a chainsaw approach to cutting positions. However, it may also reflect a desire for some in the administration to challenge lingering case law limiting executive powers. In other words, they seem to be spoiling for a fight. The reason may be Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935), which established the right of Congress to create independent agencies. It found that Congress could, without violating Article II powers, provide tenure protection to "a multimember body of experts, balanced along partisan lines, that performed legislative and judicial functions and was said not to exercise any executive power." The Court in cases like Seila Law cited that precedent for one of the exceptions to executive power. It also cited an exception for giving tenure protection to "certain inferior officers with narrowly defined duties," under Morrison v. Olson (1988). Jackson cited both cases and those exceptions in shoehorning the Special Counsel into a narrow band of quasi-executive positions. What may be overlooked in the filings of the administration before the Supreme Court in the Dellinger case was this line in a footnote: "Humphrey's Executor appears to have misapprehended the powers of "the New Deal-era [Federal Trade Commission]" and misclassified those powers as primarily legislative and judicial." It went on to suggest that the case is not only wrongly decided but that the Justice Department "intends to urge this Court to overrule that decision." Described by the Court as "the outer-most constitutional limits of permissible congressional restrictions on the President's removal power," the Trump Administration appears set to try to redraw that constitutional map. That is why Jackson's opinion may not only be expected but welcomed by the Trump administration. It is hunting for bigger game than Dellinger and Judge Jackson just gave it a clear shot for the Supreme Court.
Washington Post
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump should not be able to fire all agency heads
When President Donald Trump announced this month that he would dismiss Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, he did not claim that Dellinger had done anything wrong. Nor did he give any reason for firing Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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.
