Please click here to opt in to receive the Executive Functions Morning Roundup via email.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson (D.D.C.) on Saturday issued a permanent injunction blocking the government from removing Hampton Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Earlier roundups explained the procedural background to this order. Judge Jackson wrote that while the Supreme Court in prior cases has narrowed “restrictions on the President’s ability to remove an official who wields significant executive authority,” the head of the Office of Special Counsel “simply does not” wield this level of authority. After Judge Jackson’s decision, the government provided notice of its appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and submitted a motion in the district court requesting a stay of its order pending appeal. (NYT.) (Order.) (Opinion.) (Notice of appeal.) (Motion for a stay.)
“Several top prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., were demoted on Friday to low-level positions handling minor crimes,” reported The New York Times. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin stated that the prosecutors “would ‘immediately’ be assigned to new divisions many rungs below them on the career ladder.” Martin noted that the moves were “not temporary.” Several of the demoted officials had been involved with prosecuting cases connected to the aftermath of the 2020 Election or the Jan. 6 riot.
Judge Lauren King (W.D. Wash.) on Friday enjoined the Trump administration from enforcing in four states key components of two executive orders—one related to transgender care and the other declaring that “women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.” (Order.) (Kyle Cheney.)
Judge Matthew J. Maddox (D.MD.) on Friday extended a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from transferring funds out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and from “relinquish[ing] control or ownership of the Bureau’s reserve funds.” (Order.)
Judge Jamal Whitehead (W.D. Wash.) “elucidate[d] the Court’s reasoning and define[d] the parameters” of last week’s preliminary injunction of President Trump’s suspension of the admission of refugees into the United States. Judge Whitehead wrote, “Where, as here, Presidential action effectively nullifies a congressionally established program, causing irreparable harm to vulnerable individuals and organizations, judicial intervention becomes necessary to preserve the separation of powers our Constitution demands.” (Order.)
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Friday denied the Trump administration’s application for a partial stay of a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of the president’s executive order on birthright citizenship. The panel’s opinion focused on the authority of district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, which it stated has been affirmed by the Supreme Court. Judge Paul Niemeyer dissented from the two-judge majority. (Order.) (Commentary from Jonathan Adler, The Volokh Conspiracy.)
Scott R. Anderson and Elena Chachko analyzed President Trump’s executive order entitled “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations.” They argued that the executive order “implies, incorrectly, that Congress has little to no role to play in the conduct of foreign affairs” and appears to “be yet another means of expanding presidential control over the bureaucracy.” (Lawfare.)