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Trump Can Constitutionally Fire Biden’s Appointees
The Democrats continue to shout that Donald Trump is acting unconstitutionally in the actions he’s taking. But there’s one area, thanks to Joe Biden, where he can remove people who’ve been appointed—no matter who appointed them.
Trump’s power on this topic was established by what appeared to be a completely unrelated court case. It developed over Joe Biden’s efforts to remove Sean Spicer, who was a former White House Press Secretary, and Russell Vought, former Office of Management and Budget Director, from the U.S. Naval Board of Visitors in September 2021. Spicer was prepared to just let the decision go, since he only had three months left in his term. But he thought twice about it, and decided to request an injunction and then sue Biden to maintain his position:
After Spicer’s injunction request was denied, Biden moved to dismiss the case. Spicer’s opposition to that motion failed to change Friedrich’s mind.
‘The plaintiffs’ new arguments on the merits do not persuade,’ the judge wrote.
Friedrich reiterated her reasons for denying Spicer’s injunction request.
‘[T]he Court explained that interpreting [the federal statute] to insulate the plaintiffs from removal would raise serious constitutional issues, as Board members are executive officials whose ‘only role . . . is to advise the President on the performance of a quintessentially executive function’’ Friedrich wrote Tuesday, citing her earlier injunction ruling.
Spicer realized that if he lost the case and Biden won, the power to fire an appointee would be confirmed, unless there was a provision that prevented firing:
‘What no one ever understood was this was not about actually getting back on the board, because my term had been expired for months,’ Spicer said in an interview, according to the Examiner
‘It was forcing them to argue in the affirmative that they had the ultimate authority to fire anybody at any time, which they did. And the court accepted that. So the Biden administration is now on record in court, and the court agreed that the president had absolute authority to fire anyone he wants.
‘The whole point is now, on day one, President Trump can go in and fire everyone and say it was the Biden folks who told us that we could do this.’
Although Spicer’s action could be seen as political or “using” the justice system, what he did was legal. And after the endless efforts of the Left to block, stymie and discourage Trump in fulfilling his office in his first term, especially through the courts, it’s satisfying to see that he is now free to at least release appointees as he sees fit without violating the constitution.
Good work, Sean Spicer.
Published in Domestic Policy
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Four-D chess
I thought I’d read that before. Good on both of ya!
How did I miss that, OldPhil?! Well done.
Thanks to both of you there are many broad smiles around here. Good stuff.
I don’t know what I’m missing here. Where does the idea come from that there are people who can’t be fired? Who’s ever heard of such a thing?
When one of my cats looks like that, I give them eye medicine.
Where does it come from? Lawyers, of course.
Who’s ever heard of such a thing? Well, Democrats – but only when a Republican is President. Of course.
So if someone in Spicer’s position molested a child say, there would be no one who could fire him?
Your comment makes no sense. This post was about the legality of firing people.
Spicer was going to be fired. He tried to get an injunction to prevent it, seemingly for the ulterior purpose of making sure that there was in fact a power to fire someone in his position. If I understand what you posted. But why does this question even come up? Is it really true that the authority to fire certain federal employees is not clearly established? So you have to go to court to get an answer to a question that should have been established ages ago? Are there really people who draw paychecks who can’t be fired? It’s absurd.
There are many government organizations where people are nominated for specific terms (e.g., the Kennedy Center board is a 6-year term). The left never wants these terms to be cut short when filled by their partisans and scream “illegal” when it happens to them. Spicer just wanted to set the precedent that they could be cut short, no matter who filled the position.
It was a neat and satisfying solution.
It is the central canon of the civil servant.
Firing for cause is a recognized thing even in the civil service. It can take two years or more for a supervisor. Often, the subject of such attention is issued a desk and a phone in a remote and nasty place. It takes the supervisor a lot of time and paperwork and there are hearings often amounting to 20 hours a week of work for the supervisor. It makes no sense to sapient creatures, but I have seen it tried and consoled such supervisors here and there.
And it was absolutely the case. There was no firm judicial precedent supporting the right under current law and regulations until this case. And a lot of the noise around the first Trump term was FUD surrounding this point of doubt. When Clinton took office he fired all of the appointed DOJ prosecutors. No fuss. When W took office he fired some and there was great howling and gnashing of teeth. There are a ton of regulations protecting civil servants from political appointees and political dismissal and, for that matter, any accountability without long and painful review and counseling and so on. Obviously, the process can be accelerated by felony convictions and such. It is absurd and having the precedent tucked away makes the kind of lawfare we’ve seen applied to other core presidential authority means one less season of stupid on firings.
Great background info, Sisyphus
I began a process that got a Federal employee fired. Gave her a notice of insubordination, and the resulting process went on to consume over a year of procedures, testimony, statements, union hearings, etc. It involved multiple supervisors, HR people, and attorneys, finally resulting in dismissal. The next day she tried to get back into the building with a duplicate pass that she got earlier by claiming her original pass was lost. The guards had her picture and refused her admittance.
I still have the box with all the documents in the basement just in case.
You have my sympathy. A federal supervisor can either fire an employee for insubordination or solve world hunger, they cannot do both. It’s why so many of them drink.
Forget “both”, they can’t do “either”.