Washington — Hampton Dellinger, the former head of the office that investigates whistleblower retaliation, has dropped his legal challenge to his firing by President Trump from his role as special counsel.
Dellinger’s decision to end his legal fight comes hours after a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cleared the way for Mr. Trump to terminate him as leader of the Office of Special Counsel.
U.S. Office of Special Counsel/Handout via REUTERS
The D.C. Circuit granted a request from the president to halt a lower court order that blocked Dellinger’s firing. The judge in that case, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, sided with the former special counsel in his challenge to his removal and said in a ruling Saturday that he must remain in the role.
Dellinger’s decision to walk away from the case cuts off its path to the Supreme Court, which has in a pair of recent decisions reasserted the president’s power to remove executive branch officers at will.
“I’m stopping the fight because, yesterday, circuit court judges reviewing the trial court decision in my favor granted the government’s request that I be removed from office while the case continues,” Dellinger wrote in a statement obtained by CBS News. “This new ruling means that OSC will be run by someone totally beholden to the president for the months that would pass before I could get a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The ethics watchdog warned that the harm to those dependent on the agency under a future special counsel sympathetic to the Trump administration “could be immediate, grievous, and, I fear, uncorrectable.”
“I think the circuit judges erred badly because their willingness to sign off on my ouster — even if presented as possibly temporary — immediately erases the independence Congress provided for my position, a vital protection that has been accepted as lawful for nearly fifty years. Until now,” Dellinger said. “And given the circuit court’s adverse ruling, I think my odds of ultimately prevailing before the Supreme Court are long.”
Dellinger continued to take numerous actions under the scope of his former role while the legal battle over his firing played out. He petitioned against the Trump administration’s recent mass firings of federal workers and, on Tuesday, argued to the Merit Systems Protection Board, the administrative system for federal workers to appeal employment issues, that the Department of Agriculture’s firing of over 5,000 probationary workers violated civil service protections.
Dellinger was appointed by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in February 2024 to a five-year term. But on Feb. 7, he received an email from the head of the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office informing him that “your position as Special Counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”
Dellinger swiftly challenged his firing in federal district court, alleging that it was unlawful because federal law restricts his removal by the president only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Soon after, Jackson ordered Dellinger to be reinstated as special counsel while she considered his request for longer relief.
The Trump administration asked the D.C. Circuit and then the Supreme Court to intervene in the dispute during the earlier stages and greenlight the president’s firing of Dellinger. But last month, the high court declined to immediately step into the fight and instead put off a decision while the proceedings before the district court moved forward.
Then, on Saturday, Jackson ruled in favor of Dellinger and rejected the Trump administration’s claim that the removal protections laid out in the Civil Service Reform Act were unconstitutional.
The Justice Department again sought emergency relief from the D.C. Circuit, which granted its request to halt the district court’s ruling while it considered the appeal.
“This order gives effect to the removal of appellee from his position as Special Counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel,” the unsigned order from the three-judge panel said.
Dellinger’s firing came as part of the president’s efforts to overhaul the federal government and reduce its size and spending. Since returning to the White House for his second term, Mr. Trump has removed the heads of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board, and fired more than a dozen agency watchdogs, actions that have sparked legal challenges.
A different federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, to be reinstated earlier this month. The Justice Department has appealed that decision to the D.C. Circuit.
Thousands of federal workers deemed probationary have been laid off after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., declined to stop the firings, and the White House personnel and budget offices have told agencies to submit “reorganization plans” and prepare for “reductions in force.”
A federal judge in California last month found that the mass terminations are likely illegal in a separate case brought by labor unions and nonprofit organizations.
Separately, roughly 75,000 workers accepted Mr. Trump’s offer to resign their positions and retain full pay and benefits until Sept. 30 through a “deferred resignation” program.
