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Washington — Hampton Dellinger, the former head of the office that investigates whistleblower retaliation, has dropped his legal challenge to his firing by President Trump from his role as special counsel.
Dellinger’s decision to end his legal fight comes hours after a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cleared the way for Mr. Trump to terminate him as leader of the Office of Special Counsel.
The D.C. Circuit granted a request from the president to halt a lower court order that blocked Dellinger’s firing. The judge in that case, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, sided with the former special counsel in his challenge to his removal and said in a ruling Saturday that he must remain in the role.
Dellinger’s decision to walk away from the case cuts off its path to the Supreme Court, which has in a pair of recent decisions reasserted the president’s power to remove executive branch officers at will.
In a letter filed Thursday, lawyers for Dellinger told the D.C. Circuit Court that he decided to no longer pursue judicial relief. They said they are still in talks with the federal government over the next steps to bring the litigation to a close, but wrote “Dellinger’s final and public decision means that there is presently no live appeal for this court to address.”
“I’m stopping the fight because, yesterday, circuit court judges reviewing the trial...
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