The south lawn of the White House. President Donald Trump has removed the heads of the offices of Government Ethics and of Special Counsel. Rudy Sulgan / Getty Images
Ethics and whistleblower officials fired by Trump
Hampton Dellinger, the ousted head of the Office of Special Counsel, filed a lawsuit that argued his removal was unlawful, and a federal judge reinstated him at least through Thursday.
Updated: 10:30 a.m., Feb. 11
President Donald Trump on Monday evening named Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins as acting head of the Office of Government Ethics and of the Office of Special Counsel, whose leaders the president had recently fired.
Shortly thereafter, however, a federal judge ordered that Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger be reinstated at least through Thursday. OSC confirmed to Government Executive that Dellinger is currently leading the agency.
The Office of Government Ethics earlier Monday announced that Trump was removing the agency’s director.
David Huitema was confirmed at the end of President Joe Biden’s administration for a five-year term. OGE is heavily involved with political appointments and helps nominees address conflicts of interest.
Trump’s previous OGE chief, Emory Rounds, had several dustups with the president during his first term, including threatening to hold up any ethics agreement with officials who refused to comply with the office's requests.
Because Trump delayed initiation of the official presidential transition process, OGE was occasionally behind in completing reviews of the president’s nominees, which held up some of their confirmations.
Also on Monday, Dellinger filed a lawsuit to block his removal as leader of the Office of Special Counsel.
"Since my arrival at OSC last year, I could not be more proud of all we have accomplished. The agency's work has earned praise from advocates for whistleblowers, veterans and others,” Dellinger said in a distributed statement. “The effort to remove me has no factual nor legal basis — none — which means it is illegal.”
Dellinger on Friday evening received a one-sentence email from the White House that said: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Special Counsel of the US Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately.”
Under federal law, the president can only fire the special counsel due to “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
“The recent spate of terminations of protected civil service employees under the new presidential administration has created controversies, both about the lawfulness of these actions and about potential retaliation against whistleblowers. The OSC is statutorily tasked with receiving such reports, investigating them and taking appropriate action,” Dellinger’s attorneys wrote in their filing. “The president’s unlawful attempt to remove Special Counsel Dellinger from his office directly violates the modest but vital protections that Congress put in place and renders the OSC and the Special Counsel unable to fulfill their statutory mandate.”
Special counsels serve five-year terms, and Dellinger’s was supposed to end in 2029.
Under Dellinger, OSC had determined that former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro violated the Hatch Act for comments about the 2024 presidential election and alleged that Neera Tanden, a senior official in the Biden White House, also broke that law by fundraising for political candidates on social media.
In late January, Trump removed Democratic members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions and the National Labor Relations Board. Those individuals similarly argued their firings were illegal.
Eric Katz contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with the latest developments.