Fired Democratic credit union watchdog members sue Trump 

Two Democratic board members at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) sued President Trump on Monday for firing them. 

The lawsuit marks the latest challenge to Trump’s terminations of independent agency leaders across the federal bureaucracy, testing the bounds of presidential power.

Earlier this month, Trump fired Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, the two Democrats on NCUA’s board, without explanation.

The duo argue the president had no authority to terminate them midway through their six-year terms, noting no previous president attempted to do so in the agency’s nearly 50-year history. 

The NCUA insures deposits at more than 4,000 credit unions, safeguarding about $2 trillion in assets, and provides supervision to the industry. 

The suit emphasizes that the agency stands alongside the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve System in regulating the financial system. Trump has recently floated firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates fast enough. 

“Congress structured all three agencies to operate independently for good reason: a stable financial system depends on independent regulators who act free from political interference, guided by expert judgment in line with statutory mandate,” the complaint reads. 

The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department for comment. 

Federal law mandates no more than two of NCUA’s three board members can be from the same party. 

During Trump’s first stint in the White House, he nominated Harper for a partial term, and then-President Biden later nominated Harper for a full six-year term in 2021. Two years later, Biden nominated Otsuka for a full term. 

Their April 15 firings leave the NCUA with just one member, Republican Kyle Hauptman, meaning it is short of the two-member quorum needed to conduct certain business. 

Harper and Otsuka are represented by attorneys at Holwell Shuster & Goldberg. 

Trump’s firings of federal agency leaders with legal guardrails on how they can be hired and fired have sparked several lawsuits.

Cases are also proceeding over Trump’s firings at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the Federal Trade Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is mulling whether to intervene in legal challenges brought by fired members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board. An order could come at any time.