A federal judge repudiated President Donald Trump’s effort to remove the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, calling it an “illegal act” and “power grab” that misunderstands the limits of his authority.
“An American President is not a king — not even an ‘elected’ one,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote Thursday ina 36-page opinion, “and his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants … is not absolute, but may be constrained in appropriate circumstances.”
Howell’s order reinstates Gwynne Wilcox to the NLRB, which plays a major role in policing labor disputes across the country. Though presidents nominate — and the Senate confirms — members of the board, federal law restricts the ability to remove board members absent “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
Despite that restriction, Trump fired Wilcox in a Jan. 27 email delivered by a subordinate, saying Wilcox was not working “in a manner consistent with the objectives of my administration.” The firing is part of a broader effort by the president to take control of all purportedly “independent” agencies within the executive branch and undermine decades of efforts in Washington to insulate some federal agencies from political pressure.
On Thursday, a federal workplace watchdog fired by Trump — Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger — dropped his legal bid to reclaim his post after a federal appeals court permitted his termination. Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which oversees the grievance process for many federal employees, is also resisting Trump’s effort to remove her and was reinstated last month by a federal judge.
The Supreme Court likely will soon weigh in on Congress’ ability to insulate executive branch officials from being fired by the president without cause. With Dellinger’s decision to drop his legal fight, Harris’ case appears likeliest to reach the high court in the near-term. It’s possible Wilcox’s case will get folded into that ongoing fight.
The NLRB consists of five members who serve five-year terms. But without Wilcox, three of the board’s seats are currently vacant.
Wilcox was appointed to the NLRB by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and became the board’s chair in December 2024. She was the first NLRB member ever to be fired in the board’s 90-year history.
Trump also fired the board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, in a broad effort to take control of the regulatory agency.
Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote that reinstating Wilcox is in the public interest because without her, the NLRB will remain without a quorum and be unable to perform its required role of resolving labor disputes. And she said that Trump had other avenues to control the direction of the board without firing Wilcox: He could have appointed two new members to fill the already vacant seats, along with a new general counsel to steer the board’s policies.
The judge also delivered a warning about Trump’s multi-faceted bid to expand presidential power. She noted that, in defending the firing of Wilcox, Justice Department lawyers cited the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity that shielded Trump from some aspects of the criminal case he faced last year for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.
“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,” Howell wrote. “The courts are now again forced to determine how much encroachment on the legislature our Constitution can bear and face a slippery slope toward endorsing a presidency that is untouchable by the law.”
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