Federal appeals court sets up first test of Trump's power for Supreme Court
Source: CNN Politics
Updated 11:14 AM EST, Sun February 16, 2025
CNN — A federal appeals court on Saturday allowed the head of a government ethics watchdog agency, whom President Donald Trump fired last week, to stay on the job. It’s a decision that will likely tee up the fight over similar dismissals for the Supreme Court. The appeals court decision let stand a restraining order that permits Hampton Dellinger to temporarily remain in his post as special counsel. Dellinger, who was serving a five-year term, was appointed by President Joe Biden.
The Office of Special Counsel — which is distinct from the special counsels appointed to oversee politically sensitive Justice Department investigations — handles allegations of whistleblower retaliation and is an independent agency created by Congress. In a 2-1 decision, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said the temporary order in Dellinger’s favor was not appealable. Reviewing such an order, the court said, “would be inconsistent with governing legal standards and ill-advised.”
Granting a stay of a temporary restraining order, the court ruled, “would set a problematic precedent. If we were to accept the proposition that a party’s bare assertion of ‘extraordinary harm’ for fourteen days can render a TRO appealable, many litigants subject to TROs would be encouraged to appeal them and to seek a stay.”
Two Biden appointees, Circuit Judges J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, voted to dismiss the Trump administration’s request for a stay. US Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump nominee, said he would have granted the government’s request.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/16/politics/federal-court-trump-firing-power-dellinger/index.html
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Basically they've said there's no "extraordinary harm" that a 14-day TRO would cause and rejected that claim.
If SCOTUS picks it up and overrules the TRO, the only thing that would happen is that SCOTUS would be agreeing that Derringer's continued presence would constitute "extraordinary harm." It would be highly irregular for the SCOTUS to wrest control from the court of original jurisdiction just for the sake of placating anybody. (As my mother would have said, "Why borrow trouble?"
It would not involve ruling on the merits of the underlying claim, which I assume is that the President has sole executive authority.
6 months to a year.