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.