appeals court rules trump can remove federal ethics watchdog

A federal appeals court has authorized the Trump administration to fire Hampton Dellinger, the director of the Office of Special Counsel, by overturning an earlier decision permitting him to continue in office.

In a short order on Wednesday night, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the government had made the case for staying the order that had kept Dellinger in place.

This ruling enables the Trump administration to gain a robust upper hand in the fight being waged over the fate of Dellinger. It could ultimately be left to the Supreme Court to render a final judgment on whether or not Dellinger and similar officials working for the executive branch of government can be removed by and replaced under presidential authority.

Lower courts have in the past ruled in favor of Dellinger and Cathy Harris, a government attorney on the Merit Systems Protection Board, a separate agency charged with hearing appeals of Office of Personnel Management decision-making. The two lawyers got letters of firing in December.

The Supreme Court is likely to step in on at least one of them to rule on whether these jobs, which Congress established to provide a degree of independence, are exempt from presidential authority.

The appeals court decision comes as Dellinger and Harris recently lent their support to federal employees appealing their firings as the Trump administration attempts to shrink the federal government workforce. On Tuesday, Dellinger called on all agencies to revoke any "illegal terminations" of probationary workers. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Office of Personnel Management's guidance on such dismissals was illegal.

Michelle Bercovici, an attorney who represents federal workers before the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel, was alarmed in an email regarding what might happen next after Dellinger's ouster. She argued that letting the independent civil service watchdog be at the whim of political leaders threatens the government's integrity in a big way.