Trump takes battle over fired safety officials to Supreme Court

The administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in and rule that President Trump can carry out his attempt to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, saying a lower court’s injunction is preventing him from having his team in place.

Mr. Trump booted the three members in May, but a federal district court ordered them to return to the job, saying the president overstepped his powers.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the CPSC has descended into “chaos and dysfunction” since then, with the three reinstated members trying to undo actions taken while they were out of office.

Mr. Sauer asked the justices to issue a stay of the lower court ruling, letting Mr. Trump boot the board members while the case evolves.

Otherwise, he said, the three who show “hostility” to the president can thwart him.

“The district court’s order effectively transfers control of the CPSC from President Trump to three commissioners who had been appointed by President Biden — even though President Trump now holds ‘the mandate of the people to exercise [the] executive power,’” Mr. Sauer argued.

He said the justices’ intervention is all the more important because U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox, a Biden appointee, ignored a previous Supreme Court ruling backing Mr. Trump’s firing of leaders at other agencies.

Mr. Sauer told the justices Judge Maddox’s ruling amounted to “challenging this court’s authority.”

The three CPSC board members Mr. Trump booted were Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr.

They are part of the five-person commission.

“Depriving this five-member commission of three of its sitting members threatens severe impairment of its ability to fulfill its statutory mandates and advance the public’s interest in safe consumer products,” Judge Maddox ruled.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block his ruling, leaving Mr. Sauer to ask the justices for help.

Lawyers for the fired members told the high court on Wednesday not to intervene right now, saying it would “disrupt the status quo.”