Appeals court halts Trump independent agency firings, spurring Supreme Court battle

A federal appeals court flipped on President Trump’s firings of two independent agency leaders, temporarily reinstating them Monday and likely setting up a battle at the Supreme Court. 

In a 7-4 vote, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wiped a ruling from a three-judge panel on the court that sided with the government late last month by greenlighting Trump’s firings of Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board.  

Monday’s ruling clears the way for Harris and Wilcox to return to their posts, for now, though the Trump administration could now file an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court. 

The cases are a key test of the Supreme Court’s 90-year-old precedent that upheld removal restrictions for multimember independent agency boards, which has been recently narrowed. The D.C. Circuit majority emphasized it is for the Supreme Court to decide whether to overrule its own decision, but the lower courts must follow it until then. 

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” reads the court’s unsigned ruling. 

Harris and Wilcox each sued the Trump administration after the president unceremoniously fired them from their posts, giving no reason for their terminations. The law says any firings must be justified by “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”    

The Trump administration does not claim to have such justification and instead argues the removal protections are unconstitutional. The administration has further signaled they are prepared to ask the Supreme Court to overturn its key precedent allowing such protections, if needed.

“Only the Supreme Court can decide the dispute and, in my opinion, the sooner, the better,” U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, wrote in dissent. 

Henderson dissented along with U.S. Circuit judges Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, all Trump appointees. The seven judges in the majority were meanwhile all appointed by Democratic presidents. 

“Without considering the difficult questions regarding the scope of the court’s equitable or legal authority, the en banc majority blesses the district court’s unprecedented injunctions and purports to reinstate principal officers ousted by the President. In so doing, the majority threatens to send this court headlong into a clash with the Executive,” wrote Rao. 

The district court judges who oversaw Harris and Wilcox’s cases deemed their firings unlawful. Lower judges have also deemed illegal Trump’s firings of Susan Grundmann, the Democratic-appointed chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and Office of Special Counsel head Hampton Dellinger, though after an appeals court stayed his reinstatement, he dropped his challenge.  

Monday’s ruling is only temporary. The case now returns to a three-judge D.C. Circuit panel to make a final ruling on the legality of the firings, but the Trump administration could meanwhile seek an immediate intervention from the Supreme Court on its emergency docket.