Two judges have forced the government to reinstate two senior federal officials fired by President Donald Trump, one saying: “An American President is not a king.”
One official was chair of the National Labor Relations Board, the other was president of the United States African Development Foundation (USADF).
Why It Matters
Trump has laid off thousands of workers and defunded whole agencies as part of his election-mandated plan to radically downsize the federal government. But the federal courts have reinstated key officials, hampering Trump’s plans to remake the government system. The USADF is one of the smallest agencies in the federal government, with a relatively low appropriation of $45 million for assisting economic development in Africa. One of President Donald Trump’s latest executive orders calls for the USADF to be eliminated and to reduce its performance and personnel to the absolute minimum required by law.
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What To Know
Washington, D.C. Judge Beryl A. Howell intervened on March 6 to stop the Trump administration from firing a federal official, ordering the reinstatement of Gwynne Wilcox as chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Wilcox had been nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a second five-year term as member of the NLRB in September 2023.
Howell had sharp words for Trump about the nature of his presidency.
“A President who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. In our constitutional order, the President is tasked to be a conscientious custodian of the law, albeit an energetic one, to take care of effectuating his enumerated duties, including the laws enacted by the Congress and as interpreted by the Judiciary,” she wrote.
Reinstating Wilcox, Howell added: “An American President is not a king—not even an “elected” one—and his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants like plaintiff is not absolute, but may be constrained in appropriate circumstances, as are present here.”
Also on March 6, another Washington, D.C. federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from removing the United States African Development Foundation’s (USADF) President, Ward Brehm.
Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] had identified the foundation as a needless expense for the federal government.
Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, placed a temporary restraining order on Brehm’s removal while the court considered the issues in the case.
It came after the foundation filed a lawsuit against DOGE and the State Department.
The lawsuit claims DOGE has violated the African Development Foundation Act, a Congressional act that created the foundation.
The lawsuit claims that DOGE tried to enter the foundation’s building under “false pretenses of modernizing and streamlining USADF’s computer systems.”
The foundation’s staff refused to allow DOGE officials to review its records.
There were tense scenes at the foundation on March 6, when its employees had a sit-in protest outside its front doors in an attempt to stop DOGE staff, who were accompanied by U.S. Marshals.
What People Are Saying
The United States African Development Foundation’s president, Ward Brehm, said in a statement on March 6: “If DOGE achieves its goal of shutting down USADF, we will feel the ripple effects across the African continent and in the United States.”
James Jinette, a Trump supporter, wrote on X, formerly Twitter on March 6: “Yesterday, DOGE employees were blocked from gaining access to the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) office in D.C; but that didn’t stop them. They left and came back later with U.S. Marshals and subsequently gained access to the office.”
On the NLB case, Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of trade unions in the U.S., wrote on X, on March 6: “Judge Howell just ruled that Trump unlawfully removed Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB, overstepping his powers. His attack on worker protections was illegal plain and simple.”
What Happens Next
Unless the Trump administration wins an appeal, it is likely that Wilcox will remain as NLRB chair.
Brehm will remain in his post while a Washington, D.C. federal court considers the merits of his case.