Federal judge startled by 'basic loophole' Trump created to justify 'unlawful' firing of agency president
Source: Law & Crime
Aug 14th, 2025, 5:09 pm
The president and CEO of a congressionally created independent U.S. agency, subjected to dismantling by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Donald Trump, was unlawfully sent packing based on a nonexistent "loophole" that "makes no sense," a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Sara Aviel had for roughly three years headed the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), a grantor which exists by statute to invest in and promote democratic development "across Latin America and the Caribbean." However, one month after Trump's second inauguration, POTUS and DOGE took aim at the agency and many others like it. In February, Trump issued Executive Order 14217 with the express purpose that "unnecessary" federal bureaucracy "be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law[.]"
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, Washington, D.C.'s former solicitor general and a Joe Biden appointee whom her critics described as "extreme" prior to her confirmation, has already been a thorn in the Trump administration's side in this case, other firing cases, and for Trump's executive orders targeting law firms.
Now AliKhan has issued a declaratory judgment finding that Aviel's "alleged firing" violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. As a result, the "alleged termination was without legal effect and she remains the lawful president of the IAF," AliKhan said. The man who purported to replace her, Pete Marocco, "was not properly appointed as an acting IAF Board member and lacked any authority to take actions in that role," the judge ruled.
Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/has-worrisome-implications-federal-judge-startled-by-basic-loophole-trump-created-to-justify-unlawful-firing-of-agency-president/
Full headline: 'Has worrisome implications': Federal judge startled by 'basic loophole' Trump created to justify 'unlawful' firing of agency president
Link to RULING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26051808/iaf-firing.pdf
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks, though!
Maybe a penny or 2 was directed into somebody's bank account when I clicked it. 
From the Ruling -
“(i)f Congress [vests appointment power in a department head], it is ordinarily the department head, rather than the President, who enjoys the power of removal.” 561 U.S. at 493. Whether Congress may codify removal protections for inferior officers—the issue referred to in the Seila Law passage—differs from the question of who possesses default removal authority under the Appointments Clause.
As the Supreme Court has maintained for centuries, “the Constitution authorizes Congress to vest [appointment and
removal power] in the head of [a] department.” In re Hennen, 38 U.S. at 260. In those Case circumstances, “the President has certainly no power to remove” an individual lawfully appointed pursuant to that authority. Id.
Defendants next argue that if Ms. Aviel is the highest-ranking executive left at the Foundation, then she must be answerable to the President. ECF No. 40, at 14. But the same could be said of any inferior officer serving at the pleasure of a principal officer once the principal officer is terminated. Defendants’ position has worrisome implications: the President could easily circumvent the general restriction on firing inferior officers by simply firing the principal officers first.
That makes no sense. The Appointments Clause, Free Enterprise Fund, and established law would mean little if they were susceptible to such a basic loophole. The President may not fire an otherwise-unfireable officer by first terminating her superiors.
(snip)
Basically the judge is saying that 45 is arguing he can "get rid of" someone he doesn't like (someone down lower in the leadership chain) who was actually appointed by someone above them (a "superior officer" ), by simply firing that person above them.
Congress will explicitly "delegate authority" (as it is dubbed) to Senate-confirmed Department/agency heads, to select their own appointees, and 45 is torpedoing that idea.
.....anything's possible with the fat orange imbecile. 
