The head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel ,dismissed by President Donald Trump and then reinstated a week later by a federal judge, has dropped a lawsuit challenging his firing.
Hampton Dellinger announced Thursday he was dropping his lawsuit citing an unmanageable timeline.
But he warned of the ramifications of the decision.
"I'm stopping the fight because, yesterday [Wednesday], circuit court judges reviewing the trial court decision in my favor granted the government's request that I be removed from office while the case continues," Dellinger said in a statement, according to NPR.
"This new ruling means that OSC will be run by someone totally beholden to the President for the months that would pass before I could get a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court."
Dellinger was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed in 2024 to lead the OSC. Dellinger had come under fire from Republicans because of his connection to the former president's son, Hunter Biden, as they both worked at the Washington, D.C., law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.
Last month, Dellinger sued the Trump administration saying he was illegally dismissed, arguing that the president can remove special counsels "only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office."
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, immediately ruled that Dellinger must be permitted to serve as special counsel while she considers his request for a temporary restraining order to keep him in the job.
She said the Trump administration cannot "deny him access to the resources or materials of that office or recognize the authority of any other person as Special Counsel."
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court allowed Trump to temporarily remove Dellinger while the courts decided on whether the administration could fire him without cause.
The OSC is tasked with safeguarding federal employees who come forward as whistleblowers to alert instances of abuse and fraud within the federal government. Among his final efforts as head of the agency, Dellinger was objecting to the firing of probationary employes by the Trump administration.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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