A federal appeals court has overturned President Donald Trump's firing of the country's top copyright official in a divided opinion issued on Wednesday, Politico reports.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel, ruled on Wednesday that Trump lacks the authority to fire Shira Perlmutter as the register of copyrights at the Library of Congress because her office primarily serves the Legislative Branch and not the Executive Branch.
"Because Perlmutter leads an agency that is housed in the Legislative Branch and her primary role is to advise Congress, Perlmutter's situation differs significantly from the Executive Branch officials whose removals have been repeatedly upheld," wrote Judge Florence Pan, who was joined by Judge J. Michelle Childs. Both were appointed by former President Joe Biden.
"The President's purported removal of the Legislative Branch's chief advisor on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the President trying to fire a federal judge's law clerk," Pan wrote.
Judge Justin Walker, who was appointed by Trump, argued in favor of the president, writing that the register of copyrights "exercises executive power in a host of ways," and claimed that Perlmutter's case was similar to cases in which the Supreme Court upheld the firings of government officials at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and various labor boards.
"Recently, repeatedly, and unequivocally, the Supreme Court has stayed lower-court injunctions that barred the President from removing officers exercising executive power," Walker wrote.
However, Pan and Childs wrote that Walker overlooked the "prominent Congress-facing duties" appointed to the register of copyrights in his dissent.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.