The head of the independent federal Office of Special Counsel has filed a lawsuit, claiming he was illegally fired by President Trump.
The agency enforces ethics laws and protects federal whistleblowers.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Washington, D.C., federal court, the official, Hampton Dellinger, says he received a termination email on Friday night.
Dellinger was nominated by former President Joe Biden, and, the lawsuit states, he "is entitled to continue to serve as Special Counsel for the remainder of his five-year term and may be removed by the President 'only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.'"
A request for comment from the White House has not yet yielded a response.
The lawsuit was first reported by Politico. It's the latest instance of a controversial purported firing by Trump, such as a Democratic member of the Federal Election Commission.
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Stephen Fowler
Stephen Fowler is a political reporter with NPR's Washington Desk and will be covering the 2024 election based in the South. Before joining NPR, he spent more than seven years at Georgia Public Broadcasting as its political reporter and host of the Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, which covered voting rights and legal fallout from the 2020 presidential election, the evolution of the Republican Party and other changes driving Georgia's growing prominence in American politics. His reporting...
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