Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting says the Trump administration has “illegally attempted to remove” three people from its board of directors — all Joe Biden appointees — and now it’s suing and asking a federal judge to reverse it.
President Donald Trump “has no power to remove or terminate CPB’s Board members,” according to a complaint filed Tuesday by the CPB and board members Diane Kaplan, Laura G. Ross, and Thomas E. Rothman in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the trio was axed in a Monday email.
The CPB suit alleges that the Trump administration is ignoring protections put in place by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 as it goes after the corporation and its board members. They say ousting Kaplan, Ross and Rothman directly violates what Congress outlined in the act — that the CPB was created to “facilitate the development of public telecommunications and to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control” as a private corporation, per the CPB complaint.
“To ensure that CPB was insulated from partisan governmental interference and control and ensure its autonomy, Congress expressly provided various protections,” the complaint says, citing what Congress laid out specifically.
“CPB is not a federal agency subject to the President’s authority, but rather a private corporation,” the document explains.
“CPB’s Board members are not officers of the United States, and thus are not within the removal provisions of Article II of the Constitution,” it adds. “CPB Board members cannot be affected, controlled, or disturbed by the actions of the government.”
The CPB legal team filed a motion for a temporary restraining order Tuesday to go along with its complaint, asking U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to prohibit the Trump administration and other defendants — including the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and White House Presidential Personnel Office — “from taking any action” against Kaplan, Ross and Rothman.
Moss, a Barack Obama appointee, set a hearing for Tuesday afternoon.
According to the CPB complaint, a declaratory judgment is needed to protect the corporation “from the exact type of government interference that Congress deliberately and explicitly sought to preserve.” It accuses the Trump administration of violating the CPB’s legislative structure by undermining it and the CPB’s autonomy “in one sweeping act of executive overreach.”
Kaplan, Ross and Rothman were allegedly removed Monday in an email sent by Trent Morse, the deputy director of Presidential Personnel, in an email that did not provide any reason or “authority” to terminate them, the CPB complaint says.
The correspondence, per the complaint, stated: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”
The CPB says the administration’s “recent pattern of unlawful removal of board members” and other federal employees in recent months has left the corporation fearing what could happen to CPB’s future.
“The credible and urgent threats facing CPB, as a result of the Correspondence, are not speculative or theoretical,” its complaint says. “To the contrary, such threats are well-grounded in the administration’s recent terminations of board members at other congressionally-created organizations.”
Describing harms it could potentially face, CPB lawyers claim they include “ultra vires actions taken by unlawfully installed officials, the exposure of attorney-client privileged documents and sensitive operational and personal information, the permanent destruction of documents and other real property, the loss of goodwill and public trust, chilled speech, and possible destruction of the CPB itself.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the Trump administration for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.
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