President Donald Trump has sent the Supreme Court its first test of loyalty after a lower court blocked his bid to fire the head of a watchdog agency.
A filing submitted Sunday—but not yet formally docketed—asks the Supreme Court to lift the restraining order that blocked Trump’s firing of Office of the Special Counsel chief Hampton Dellinger, according to The New York Times.
Last week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C. temporarily reinstated Dellinger while she considered his case. Dellinger was supposed to serve a five-year term after he was confirmed by the Senate last year but got fired in a one-sentence email on Feb. 7.
“This language expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the Special Counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change,” Jackson, an Obama appointee, wrote in the order in response to a lawsuit filed by Dellinger.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in the Supreme Court filing that “this case involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief.”
Harris described Trump’s firing of Dellinger as “an uncontroversial exercise” of his powers, noting that presidents are free to remove the head of an agency with a single top officer at will.
“This Court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will,” Harris said.
On Saturday, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 2-1 to reject the Trump administration’s request for an intervention as premature.
The case is expected to be docketed after the Supreme Court returns from the Presidents Day holiday.
