The Supreme Court could rule as early as this week on whether Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger should be reinstated and given access to his office, the first legal clash to reach the justices during this Trump administration over congressional protections for some federal officials.
Trump administration officials fired Dellinger earlier this month, according to court records, in a one-sentence email. The Office of Special Counsel, first created in the Carter administration, protects whistleblowers and federal employees more broadly within the executive branch, and a law protects the special counsel from removal except for cause.
Dellinger filed a lawsuit, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered a temporary restraining order that Dellinger be reinstated and given access to his office temporarily while the case played out.
