The Supreme Court declined to immediately decide whether President Trump can re-fire the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, opting to wait until it rules on two other major cases involving the removal of independent agency officials.
The justices said they would postpone consideration of whether to overturn a divided federal appeals court decision that allowed Shira Perlmutter, the dismissed official, to remain in her position. The Court will revisit the issue after issuing decisions in the cases involving former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter and Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook, The Hill reported.
The court is slated to hear arguments in Slaughter’s case early next month and in Cook’s in January, said the outlet.
Perlmutter was dismissed in May along with her superior, the librarian of Congress. President Trump subsequently appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to lead the agency.
The administration has requested an emergency order to halt the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision blocking Perlmutter’s removal while the case continues, noted The Hill.
Perlmutter was dismissed one day after her office released a report raising questions about whether companies may legally use copyrighted materials to train artificial intelligence systems. In her appeal, she argued that President Trump later made public comments contradicting the report’s conclusions.
A district judge initially rejected her challenge, but a divided D.C. Circuit panel ruled 2–1 that her removal was likely unlawful and blocked the firing while the case proceeds.
“In a system of checked and balanced power, the Executive has no authority to punish a Legislative Branch official for the advice that she provides to Congress,” Judge Florence Pan wrote for the majority.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer criticized the panel’s conclusion that the office functions within the legislative branch, calling it a “startling about-face.” He argued that the court had previously held that the Library of Congress and its component offices are part of the executive branch.
“Every step of the court of appeals’ analysis depends on the premise that the Librarian and Register are legislative rather than executive officials,” he wrote in the Trump administration’s petition to the justices last month, describing the “core premise” of the court’s reasoning “fundamentally wrong.”
Attorneys for Perlmutter argued that the administration has made an “inexcusable mess” of Congress’s intent for how the Library of Congress should be governed in its “zeal” to prevail in the case. They contended the issue is not whether the copyright director or the librarian of Congress perform functions that might be considered “executive,” but whether Congress chose to structure the Library as an “executive agency” subject to direct presidential control, The Hill reported.
“If Applicants were permitted to disregard Congress’s restrictions on the President’s appointment and removal powers, the Appointments Clause would be rendered a practical nullity — in defiance of the careful balance of executive and legislative power that the Constitution itself strikes,” Perlmutter’s lawyers wrote to the justices.
“It is also undoubtedly in the public interest that the Court prevent the President’s unconstitutional actions, rather than permit him to act illegally and have his way,” they argued.
U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, dissented, arguing that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly and unequivocally” permitted Trump’s firings to proceed while legal challenges play out. He said he would not have allowed Perlmutter to remain in her position.
Democracy Forward, the left-leaning legal organization representing Perlmutter, said the Court’s order indicates that what it described as the administration’s “unlawful executive overreach” was not endorsed by the justices.
“We are pleased that the Court deferred the government’s motion to stay our court order in a case that is critically important for rule of law, the separation of powers and the independence of the Library of Congress,” Skye Perryman, the organization’s president and CEO, noted in a statement.
