
Left: President-elect Donald Trump on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube). Right: Hampton Dellinger (Office of Special Counsel).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is calling on booted-then-reinstated Biden ethics enforcer Hampton Dellinger to respond by Wednesday to a request that President Donald Trump‘s Justice Department made over the weekend, asking for a ruling by a federal judge in Washington — who deemed Dellinger’s firing unlawful — be tossed out before the DOJ takes the case up to the Supreme Court.
“This relief constitutes an extraordinary intrusion into the President’s authority,” wrote DOJ lawyers in a lower court motion to stay U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order, which was filed less than an hour after the ruling by the Barack Obama appointee in the District of Columbia. Jackson denied the motion to stay her order on Monday afternoon.
“Accordingly, Defendants have now appealed the Court’s order and intend to request a stay pending appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit,” the DOJ lawyers said. “Out of an abundance of caution to ensure compliance with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure, Defendants respectfully move the Court to stay its order pending appeal.”
In the emergency motion filed with the appellate court in D.C. on Saturday, the DOJ claimed Dellinger has been “prosecuting complaints on behalf of terminated federal employees and seeking stays of their terminations” after being reinstated by Jackson last month. Just days after Jackson issued a temporary restraining order reinstating him as special counsel, Dellinger allegedly launched an OSC probe into the firings of six federal workers by Trump. Dellinger conducted the investigation and then filed a petition with the Merit Systems Protection Board last Friday to reverse the removals. Dellinger, fired in January, was given his first TRO lifeline by Jackson on Feb. 12; his office reportedly announced the OSC probe on Feb. 14.