Judge Torches Trump For Illegal Firing Of Watchdog Agency Head

*Go to my sponsor and use code RINGOFFIRE to enjoy private, uncensored AI. Using my code will get you 20% off a pro plan.

Over the weekend, a federal judge ruled that Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Office of Special Counsel was unlawful, and ordered that the head – Hampton Dellinger – be reinstated. The case is likely to head to the Supreme Court after this, but Judge Amy Berman Jackson absolutely torched the administration in her ruling, and that’s going to be quite a hurdle to overcome at the High Court. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what happened.

Subscribe to stay connected to our stories

Support us by becoming a member on YouTube

Or Support us on Patreon

Buy Ring of Fire merch

Find us on social media!

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump suffered a humiliating legal defeat on Saturday when US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the firing of Hampton Dellinger, who happened to be the head of the Office of Special Counsel, was in fact illegal. Now, Mr. Dellinger was file, uh, fired early on in the Trump administration. He filed a lawsuit against them last month, arguing that he was appointed and approved by the Senate to start a five year term beginning in the year 2024. Um, there's only certain reasons why the head of the Office of Special Counsel can be fired, and I didn't meet any of that criteria, and Judge Jackson agreed. And for the record, the US Supreme Court had also issued a temporary injunction at one point saying that, uh, Mr. Dellinger could in fact remain on the job. So not looking great for Donald Trump when this case goes to the Supreme Court.

And yes, the DOJ has already filed a notice that they're going to appeal it to the US Supreme Court, but it's not just that the judge ruled against Donald Trump, it's how the judge ruled against Donald Trump. That to me is what is remarkable here is what she said. The Special counsel is supposed to withstand the winds of political change and help ensure that no government servant of either party becomes the subject of prohibited employment practices or faces reprisals for calling out wrongdoing by holdovers from a previous administration or by officials of the new one, basically saying, this guy needs to have his job so that he's not one of your cronies and he can actually call out when someone in your administration is breaking the law. You know, she didn't mention this, but kind of like, I don't know, maybe the world's richest man getting to kill a contract that the FAA has with Verizon so that he can give it to his own company, starlink, right?

That kind of seems like a massive conflict of interest that a, uh, head of the Office of Special Counsel would probably wanna look into. And of course, it makes sense for Donald Trump to not want these watchdogs looking over his administration shoulder every day. We know that a lot of what they've done based on the rulings we have seen so far in court is not exactly on the level. And we know that things that haven't been challenged in court yet, again, like Elon Musk killing the Verizon contract to give it to himself, probably also illegal. Yeah. So there's a lot of things that we need people like Dellinger for. Also, he would be a, as the head of the, uh, office of Special Counsel, they're in charge of, you know, whistleblower complaints investigating those. They're in charge of enforcing, enforcing the Hatch Act, uh, all sorts of things.

Uh, they pursue disciplinary action against employees who punish whistleblowers and provide a channel for employees to disclose government wrongdoing. So, lots of things. And again, Dellinger was approved, confirmed by the Senate. So this is not somebody that Donald Trump necessarily has the authority to fire as he was confirmed for a set term in office. That, of course, will span the entirety of Donald Trump's time as President of the United States. So we'll see what the Supreme Court says. Again, so far they've not been friendly with Trump on this issue, but that was just in preliminary hearings. Right. Once it gets to them and, you know, the brass tacks are down, um, anything could happen. I, I don't think that it's, it's good to be honest with you. I mean, just being real here, yes, the law is a hundred percent on Mr. Dillinger's side, and if we didn't have a corrupt, skewed far right Supreme Court, this would be a slam dunk.