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As the head of the Office of Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger had a triple target on his back from the start of Donald Trump’s presidency: He was a Joe Biden appointee, he was the head of one of the independent regulatory agencies that the Trump administration is targeting, and his duty was to fight to protect the jobs of tens of thousands of civil servants the president has tried to fire.
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So when Dellinger received an email on Friday, February 7, telling him that he’d been dismissed, he wasn’t surprised. He also wasn’t going to quietly concede. Under a law that’s stood for decades, the special counsel serves a five-year term and “may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The following Monday morning, Dellinger filed a suit challenging his firing, and by that night, a federal judge had temporarily reinstated him.
Shannon Sharpe has denied allegations of rape levied against him in a civil lawsuit filed on Sunday, with his attorney claiming Sharpe’s accuser presented the former NFL star with a “secretly recor...