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Judge to Trump: You Are Not a King [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-06
Just 8 days after his “coronation,” the Mangled Mussolini decided to fire Gwynne Wilcox, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB), probably she is Black, because she is a woman, or both. A week later, she sued: Recently fired NLRB chair sues Trump administration for alleged unlawful removal:
Former chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Gwynne Wilcox filed a lawsuit Wednesday, accusing President Donald Trump of breaking the law when he fired her last week. Wilcox claims the firing violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which only permits the removal of board members for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” The suit argues that the “President’s removal of Ms. Wilcox without even purporting to identify any neglect of duty of malfeasance, and without notice or a hearing defies ninety years of Supreme Court precedent.” It also alleges that Trump has engaged in a string of illegal firings during the first several weeks of his presidency.
Today, a federal district court judge in DC, Beryl Howell, ordered the administration to reinstate Wilcox: Judge says Trump illegally fired National Labor Relations Board member. Hardly unexpected — but what makes this really worth a diary is what Judge Howell said about Trump in her decision (PDF). Here are some excerpts:
To start, the Framers made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king—the President included—and not just in name only.
In more detail:
A President who touts an image of himself as a “king” or a “dictator,” perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. . . . At issue in this case, is the President’s insistence that he has authority to fire whomever he wants within the Executive branch, overriding any congressionally mandated law in his way. . . . Luckily, the Framers, anticipating such a power grab, vested in Article III, not Article II, the power to interpret the law, including resolving conflicts about congressional checks on presidential authority. The President’s interpretation of the scope of his constitutional power— or, more aptly, his aspiration—is flat wrong. [footnote omitted; italics in original] The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law. Defendants concede that removal of plaintiff as a Board Member violates the terms of the applicable statute . . . and because this statute is a valid exercise of congressional power, the President’s excuse for his illegal act cannot be sustained. [emphases added]
Her conclusion makes it clear she knows what Trump is trying to do:
The President seems intent on pushing the bounds of his office and exercising his power in a manner violative of clear statutory law to test how much the courts will accept the notion of a presidency that is supreme.
And she’s not having any of it:
An American President is not a king—not even an “elected” one—and his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants like plaintiff is not absolute, but may be constrained in appropriate circumstances, as are present here. [footnote omitted]
(The “honest civil servant” was a nice flourishing touch!)
This judge takes no prisoners. It will be interesting to see how the Tumescent Traitor’s Supreme Court toadies try to get around this one.
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