An activist federal judge has issued a ruling to block one of President Donald Trump’s recent orders.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered Trump to reinstate two Democrat members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board whom he fired, Fox News reported.
Trump terminated all three of the Democrats on the board, leaving one lone Republican.
Two of the fired board members filed a lawsuit in February.
The third Democrat member who was fired was just days from her term ending anyway and did not join the legal action.
Judge Walton found in favor of the terminated board members on the basis that Trump’s firing without cause hindered their mission.
Congress had established the board after 9/11 to make sure that any counterterrorism matters would not interfere with privacy and civil liberties.
With Walton’s ruling, he claimed that allowing the president to summarily fire them effectively made the oversight body “beholden to the very authority it is supposed to oversee on behalf of Congress and the American people.”
The Trump administration disagrees.
The firings came in January, not long after Trump took office, Newsmax reported.
The PCLOB spokesman, Alan Silverleib, announced on Jan. 27 that members Travis LeBlanc and Ed Felton, along with Chairwoman Sharon Bradford Franklin, had been let go the week before.
“The agency, however, has significant ability to continue functioning with its full staff and remaining Member Beth Williams to continue the Board’s important mission, including its advice and oversight functions, and its current projects,” Silverleib’s statement said.
The board typically consists of five members, but there was already one vacancy when the three members were ousted.
Franklin was already on her way out, but still expressed her dismay at the decision.
“This isn’t about me — my term was set to end later this week anyway,” Franklin claimed in a statement at the time.
“But I am devastated by the attack on the board’s independence and the fact that our agency will have too few members to issue official reports.”
LeBLanc’s statement at the time revealed the basis for the eventual lawsuit.
“I regret that the board’s partisan shift will ultimately undermine not only the mission of the agency, but public trust and confidence in the ability of the government to honor privacy rights, respect civil liberties, honestly inform the public, and follow the law,” he said.
Indeed, the judge’s decision reflected LeBlanc’s assertion.
Walton believes that an at-will appointment negates the committee’s power.
“To hold otherwise would be to bless the President’s obvious attempt to exercise power beyond that granted to him by the Constitution and shield the Executive Branch’s counterterrorism actions from independent oversight, public scrutiny, and bipartisan congressional insight regarding those actions,” Walton wrote in his decision.
However, Trump believes it’s within the president’s power to make such personnel decisions.
“The Constitution gives President Trump the power to remove personnel who exercise his executive authority,” Harrison Fields, White House spokesman, said.
“The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue,” Fields added.
Trump will have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court, though it’s unclear whether they will find in his favor.
The judiciary seems particularly stacked against Trump this term as they thwart him at every opportunity.
This is the latest in a string of decisions to block the president’s moves.
Still, the committee’s oversight is not for the president but rather the intelligence and counterterrorism agencies.
As the highest executive, Trump should be able to make these personnel decisions regardless of how the court feels about it.
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