Washington
CNN
—
President Donald Trump’s firing of the former chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board was an “illegal act,” a federal judge ruled Thursday, overturning her ousting in a decision that was highly critical of Trump’s “intent on pushing the bounds of his office.”
The ruling from US District Judge Beryl Howell represents the third time in less than a week that a federal judge in Washington, DC, has ruled unlawful Trump’s firing of officials who head independent agencies.
In a scathing ruling, Howell called Trump’s attempt earlier this year to fire Gwynne Wilcox, who had been serving as chair of the NLRB, “a blatant violation of the law … The President’s excuse for his illegal act cannot be sustained.”
Howell’s order reinstates Wilcox as a board member, but Trump’s pick to chair the NLRB, Marvin Kaplan, will remain in charge. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The President seems intent on pushing the bounds of his office and exercising his power in a manner violative of clear statutory law to test how much the courts will accept the notion of a presidency that is supreme,” Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in her 36-page opinion.
“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,” she added.
Wilcox sued Trump and Kaplan shortly after her ousting, claiming that it violated federal law that allows removal of board members only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office but for no other cause.” She also said the law requires that removal take place only after notice and a hearing. The lawsuit said that Trump’s dismissal gave no cause for his action and was done without notice or hearing.
Howell agreed, writing that Wilcox’s “termination was not preceded by ‘notice and hearing,’ nor was any ‘neglect of duty or malfeasance’ identified, despite the explicit restrictions to removal of a Board member in the NLRA.”
She said Wilcox “shall continue to serve as a member of the NLRB until her term expires … unless she is earlier removed ‘upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.’”
Wilcox, appointed by President Joe Biden, was notified of her firing in a letter in late January that said she was let go because her record showed she was “unduly disfavoring the interests of employers large and small.”
Among the rules put in place by Wilcox and other Biden appointees that Trump criticized was one that prevented employers facing a union organizing vote from holding what are generally referred to as “captive audience” meetings, in which workers are required to sit through presentations laying out all the reasons they should vote against union representation, lest they lose their jobs entirely.
Earlier this week, a separate federal judge ruled that Trump unlawfully fired the head of an independent federal agency that reviews federal employee firings.
And last Saturday, a third judge in DC similarly said Trump skirted the law when he summarily fired the head of a government watchdog agency. A federal appeals court put that ruling on hold Wednesday evening, but the official, Hampton Dellinger, announced Thursday that he would drop his legal challenge to his ousting altogether.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s John Fritze and Chris Isidore contributed to this report.
