Judge Smacks Down Bureaucrat Who Claimed Trump Can’t Fire Her

A federal bureaucrat went to court to insist that, because President Donald Trump cannot fire her, the Trump administration should be halted from doing so.

However, Shira Perlmutter, former director of the U.S. Copyright Office, lost a round in court on Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said she failed to show irreparable harm from being fired, according to the Associated Press.

Kelly did not decide the merits of Perlmutter’s suit. He only rejected her demand for a temporary restraining order that would have let her keep her job while the legal wrangling goes on.

Perlmutter has been Register of Copyrights since October 2020. Trump has appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as Librarian of Congress, to replace Carla Hayden, who appointed Perlmutter.

The U.S. Copyright Office operates within the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress, who works for the legislative branch but is a presidential appointment subject to Senate confirmation, chooses its director.

The lawsuit is aimed at Blanche as well as the wider Trump administration, according to Politico.

Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing that Perlmutter is wrongly claiming she is an exception to the rules.

“The Constitution creates three branches of Government. There is Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. There is no fourth constitutional category reserved for an indeterminate-and-multiplying number of autonomous federal organizations. That simple principle suffices to deny Plaintiff’s motion,” the filing said.

“The President of the United States removed Carla Hayden from her position as Librarian of Congress and designated the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, as acting Librarian,” the filing said.

The President then removed Plaintiff, Shira Perlmutter, from service as the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office — a decision that was ratified by Mr. Blanche in his role as acting Librarian, including through Mr. Blanche’s appointment of Paul Perkins to that role,” the filing said.

“The President had the power to remove the Librarian and designate an acting replacement. The Library of Congress is not an autonomous organization free from political supervision. It is part of the Executive Branch and is subject to presidential control, according to the strictures of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act,” the filing said.

The filing said Perlmutter had no claim to retain her job, noting, “Plaintiff has no right to perpetual service as Register of Copyrights.”

“The other injuries Plaintiff postulates are not her injuries, but supposed institutional injuries to the Library or to Congress — injuries that cannot support her request for judicial reinstallation to office. And Plaintiff makes no claim that the U.S. Copyright Office is somehow in jeopardy,” the filing said.

After the ruling, the White House stood by its position, according to Roll Call.

“All organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction,” White House representative Anna Kelly said in a statement. “President Trump reserves the right to remove employees within his own Executive Branch who exert his executive authority.”

Presidential appointee... actually everyone of them should be required to submit a tentative resignation as do the Ambassadors in the Department of State who are appointed by the President to the country he wants to send them. Every change of administration us to transmit the Ambassador’s Resignation which happened in last time in 2006 for me; and the incoming President either replaced them or kept them in place until whenever. Having an Ambassador in Guyana was like Gold, and our’s spent more time away than on station - and good for him, after 28 years mostly in African posting in the interior he deserved the breaks. Besides, when the boss is away the Charge de Affairs or the USAID chief got professional brownie points in their hopes to become an ambassador somewhere ELSE someday. The donar class usually has major family ties and conflicts of interest if they are posted to The Netherlands, Ukraine, Balkins, etc. It is funny that we have professional class to keep things professional but we appoint the CORRUPTEES by hand of the president. The State Dept needs reform.

Every president has their own people, or donars who paid mightly for those ambassadorsips. While the rest of the foreign service are considered professionals, the likelyhood of a career foreign service officer/specialist (designated 15,000 capped) going to a G20 nation is remote. These poor slobs might get an Africian or Asian posting, or some island nation.

I remember once I was asked if I wanted to go to a Caribbean Island embassy for two years; definitely not. A resort destination is fraught with problems of the tourists getting in trouble or losing their passports. The type of American customers can be demanding and unappredciative all too often. I did take a hardship posting to Georgetown Guyana, the American Embassy Georgetown. This has to be the top three most dangerous posting in the foreign service, and the one of the most heartbreaking to live among the people. My HS aged boys and my wife were with at noon time driving on the main downtown street when a scooter driver was hit and killed; somebody run out and poked him when he didn’t move, and in an instant of about 90 seconds the crowd striped the body of everything leaving him nude in death on the street as they ran off with the scrapes of materiel and shoes. The dead animals on the road, horses, mules, pigs, goats, cows, cats, dogs, lay in the roadway heat bloated until a weekly pickup happens.

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