‘Spoiling For A Fight’ – Judge Blocks Trump’s Firing Of Head Of Office Of Special Counsel
3rd March 2025
Late Saturday, D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that President Donald Trump violated federal law in firing Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel. Jackson’s decision is forceful, well-written, and challengeable under existing precedent. Indeed, it may have just set up an appeal that both presidents and professors have long waited for to reinforce presidential powers.
Trump has been doing things that formally Presidents are allowed to do but that most of his predecessors have shied away from because doing so would be inconsistent with ‘how we do things today’. At the very least, it will hammer out (through the courts and otherwise) just what the President can lawfully do.