Federal Appeals Court Stays District Court’s PCLOB Reinstatements
A federal appeals court on Tuesday granted a stay, halting a district court’s decision that found President Donald Trump’s recent firings at the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to be illegal.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed a May decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The district court cited restrictions on the president’s removal power in finding the firings of PCLOB members Travis LeBlanc and Ed Felten to be illegal (see 2505210073).
The appeals court cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Wilcox (see [2505230044]). “The public interest is harmed when an injunction wrongfully insulates the President's Executive Branch appointees from his oversight,” the appeals court said. “LeBlanc and Felten counter that their removals would deprive PCLOB of a quorum, preventing the agency from performing its statutory duties. But the Supreme Court, when pressed with similar arguments in Wilcox, nonetheless stayed orders restoring the removed officers. ... We do the same here.”