Trump administration to ask Supreme Court to keep fired government watchdog off the job as case pends

The Trump administration will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that ordered a government ethics watchdog reinstated to his post after the president fired him.

Hampton Dellinger, leader of the whistleblower protection agency the Office of Special Counsel, sued the Trump administration after he was fired this month.

A district judge had ordered Dellinger, a Biden appointee, to be temporarily reinstated during ongoing legal proceedings. A panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., denied the Trump administration's request to overturn the district judge's order on procedural grounds Saturday.

The Justice Department plans to elevate the case to the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene by allowing the administration to keep Dellinger off the job while litigation proceeds, according to a copy of the application provided by a Justice Department official. The application has not yet been docketed at the Supreme Court.

The application argues that lower courts' actions limited President Donald Trump's ability to manage the executive branch and that "preventing him from exercising these powers thus inflicts the gravest of injuries on the Executive Branch and the separation of powers."

"The United States now seeks this Court’s intervention because these judicial rulings irreparably harm the Presidency by curtailing the President’s ability to manage the Executive Branch in the earliest days of his Administration," read the application, which was signed by acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris.

The Justice Department also argued that lower court filings in multiple cases "intrude upon a host" of Trump's constitutional powers.

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"This Court should not allow the judiciary to govern by temporary restraining order and supplant the political accountability the Constitution ordains," the application said.

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Dellinger claimed in his lawsuit this month that he was fired illegally.

“That email made no attempt to comply with the Special Counsel’s for-cause removal protection,” the lawsuit said. “It stated simply: ‘On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Special Counsel of the US Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately.’”

The Trump administration's mass firings and attempts to slash the size of the federal government have been applauded by fiscal conservatives but blasted by Democrats, labor unions and progressive organizations as illegal.