A federal judge found that President Donald Trump unlawfully ousted two Democratic members of a federal privacy oversight board, Politico reported Wednesday.
District Court Judge Reggie Walton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled that Trump illegally fired Travis LeBlanc and Ed Felten from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, according to the report.
The judge also said the board’s "structure was intended to have a restriction on the president’s removal power," according to the report. "As a result, Walton ordered that LeBlanc and Felten remain as board members.”
“Such unfettered authority would make the Board and its members beholden to the very authority it is supposed to oversee on behalf of Congress and the American people,” Walton said in his ruling.
“To hold otherwise would be to bless the President’s obvious attempt to exercise power beyond that granted to him by the Constitution and shield the Executive Branch’s counterterrorism actions from independent oversight, public scrutiny, and bipartisan congressional insight regarding those actions.”
The ruling reinstates all the Democrats whom Trump fired at the oversight board in January.
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“Without at least a three-member quorum, PCLOB can’t start new projects or issue official board reports,” Politico said.
They later added, “President Donald Trump has targeted DEI as part of various executive orders, and Carr often echoes the president’s complaints in his pledges to end any invidious forms of discrimination in the companies he regulates.”
“We will abide by the court order. We understand the Department of Justice intends to appeal,” Alan Silverleib, a spokesperson for PCLOB, said in a statement.
The ruling could impact several other firings the Trump administration has executed since he returned to office. This includes his firings at the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the National Credit Union Administration.