A Federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s attempted firing of Cathy Harris, the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), after determining that the president “lacks the power” to fire Harris “at will.”
The decision by District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia puts in place a permanent injunction against the Trump administration, and backs up existing law that says the president cannot remove Harris “from her position absent inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
The injunction comes after Harris appealed her removal as the chair of MSPB – an independent, quasi-judicial agency within the executive branch that protects against prohibited personnel and partisan political practices.
Trump demoted Harris on the first day of his administration and then attempted to fire her on Feb. 10 without providing a justification for that move. In her lawsuit against the administration filed on Feb. 11, Harris argued that the president can only remove an MSPB member for “”inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
Harris said President Trump “disregarded that clear statutory language” and fired her within a one-sentence email. Following Harris’s suit, Judge Contreras issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that reinstated her as MSPB chair.
Harris was nominated to her position in 2022 by President Joe Biden with her term set to end in 2028.
President has also targeted other top watchdog officials in his flurry of firings, including Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), who also filed a suit protesting his removal. Dellinger was temporarily reinstated while awaiting a ruling on a preliminary injunction – a decision that has since been appealed by the Trump administration.
OSC was involved in a recent decision by MSPB to temporarily give six probationary employees across several agencies their jobs back after they appealed their layoffs to Dellinger. OSC argued that the firings should be stayed pending an investigation. MSPB agreed, noting that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the firings were illegal and the stay would be issued “while OSC further investigates their complaints.”
Since that decision, Raymond Limon, who served as the MSPB vice chairman before being demoted by Trump, retired leaving the board with a narrow quorum as its case load quickly mounts amid slashes in the Federal workforce.
Since Trump has taken office, the board has received more than 2,700 cases – a sharp uptick from its usual numbers, with 1,845 cases being filed the week of Feb. 16 alone, according to the board.
