A federal judge in Puerto Rico has issued an order blocking President Donald Trump from firing members of the island's Financial Oversight and Management Board.
That board, created in 2016 under the PROMESA bill, exists to “make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States,” while restructuring Puerto Rico's territorial debt “to achieve fiscal responsibility and access to the capital markets.” Seven people serve on the board, appointed by the president, and it is one of a number of agencies where members are legally protected from being removed without good cause.
The Trump administration tried to put forward multiple arguments for why it had not violated the good-cause requirements of PROMESA, including the fact that Trump's Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel sent the fired boardmembers a letter after the lawsuit was filed accusing them of “inefficiency, ineffectiveness, neglect, and failure to advance the statutory mission of the Oversight Board.”
But U.S. District Judge Maria Antongiorgi-Jordan was not convinced.
"The Supreme Court has indicated that where Congress provides that a federal officer may be removed only for cause, 'the officer is entitled to notice and a hearing,'" she wrote. "This is because where a statute provides that an official may be removed only 'for cause,' that suggests that Congress intended to place the decision to remove that official beyond the unlimited discretion of one actor."
It's the latest in a long series of legal disputes as Trump tries to remove officials from various independent boards that are supposed to be insulated from politics. One high-stakes battle concerns Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump tried to fire based on unproven and disputed allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. The Supreme Court, which has in many cases intervened to overrule lower courts and let Trump at least temporarily fire independent agency officials, kept Cook in place for the time being.
