President Donald Trump is allowed to fire two board members from independent federal agencies after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted two to one to remove restrictions on the president’s ability to do so.
The court agreed to remove orders imposed by two district judges earlier this month that blocked the Trump administration from removing Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.
The appellate court, led by Judge Justin Walker, stated that Trump acted constitutionally when he fired the individuals.
“Article II of the Constitution vests the ‘executive Power’ in ‘a President of the United States’ and requires him to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ ‘To protect individual liberty, the Framers created a President independent from the Legislative Branch,’” Walker wrote in his decision.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an H.W. Bush nominee, voted alongside Walker to overturn the lower court’s ruling on the firings.
BREAKING: The federal court of appeals in DC has cleared the way for Trump to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, consolidating Trump’s grip on once “independent” parts of the executive branch.https://t.co/epL3UTiIkY pic.twitter.com/Eb2kJd2rxS
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 28, 2025
The decision from the appellate court came after the Justice Department asked the court to intervene in the orders, which were issued by District Judge Rudolph Contreras and District Judge Beryl. Contreras ruled on March 4 that Trump broke the law when he tried to fire Harris, and two days later, Howell ruled that Trump overreached his authority in attempting to remove Wilcox. (RELATED: Here’s Where Dozens Of Legal Challenges Against Trump Administration Stand)
President Joe Biden nominated Harris to the MSPB in 2022. He nominated Wilcox to the NLRB in 2021, renominated her for a second term in 2023, and then designated her chair in 2024.
Wilcox and Harris’s attorneys advocated against the appellate court overturning the decision to block their firings, with Wilcox’s attorneys arguing that the Trump administration needed to lobby the Supreme Court if they wanted to “adopt a more expansive view of presidential power,” according to court documents.
The Trump administration, however, successfully argued that Trump had the authority to fire both board members and that blocking the president from doing so would harm the separation of powers and undermine the president’s constitutional authority.
US President Donald Trump looks on during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on March 24, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden fired NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb in Jan. 2021 after he refused to resign just hours after Biden was sworn into office. Robb called the move “unprecedented,” writing, “The removal of an incumbent General Counsel of the NLRB prior to the expiration of the term by a President of the United States is unprecedented since the nascence of the National Labor Relation Act (NLRA) and the NLRB,” according to Bloomberg Law. (RELATED: Biden Fires U.S. Labor Board’s Top Lawyer In Unprecedented Move)
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Jan. 2023 that Biden had the power to fire Robb because he was in an “at will” position as the general counsel, unlike other NLRB board members who may only be fired due to “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,” according to the National Labor Relations Act. (RELATED: House Committee Report Finds Widespread ‘Misconduct’ In Union Elections By Government Labor Board)
The sole judge that voted against the Trump administration, Judge Patricia Millett, was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, She accused her two colleagues of attempting to “rewrite” Supreme Court precedent.
