Court reinstates Western Washington US attorney fired by Trump

Filed 46m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

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Alexander Nakarada · creatorchords.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Kurt Kaiser · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian ruled Thursday that the Trump administration exceeded its authority by firing Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington less than an hour after the district court swore him in on July 15. Bastian, an Obama appointee, found the president cannot unilaterally fire a U.S. attorney appointed by a district court to fill a vacancy, a power the Constitution reserves to Congress to structure.

The vacancy dated to 2023, and when Trump's administration missed a February deadline to fill it, the court appointed Rogoff itself. The Justice Department argued the president must retain at-will removal power over executive officers, but Bastian found that rule applies only to attorneys confirmed through the Senate nomination process, not court appointees.

While the case was pending, the administration tried installing an alternative chain of command, nominating Simon Peter Serrano, who has not been confirmed, and directing another official, Charles Floyd, to perform the U.S. attorney's duties. Bastian rejected both as having no legal standing and ordered the government not to interfere with Rogoff carrying out the office's duties.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Firing a man less than an hour into a job that a federal court, not the president, gave him is the kind of timing that makes you wonder if anybody read the Constitution before hitting send on that email. The administration then tried to paper over the gap with an unconfirmed nominee and a reassigned deputy, like swapping out the locks while the rightful owner was still standing on the porch. The judge wasn't fooled, and reading the ruling, it's hard to see how anyone could have been.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Banjos Unite · Alexander Nakarada · CC BY 4.0

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