At 7:22 p.m. on Friday, February 7, 2025, Hampton Dellinger, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, received an email from Sergio Gor, director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Special Counsel of the US Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately.” A federal judge later noted that the “curt email from the White House informing the Special Counsel that he was terminated contained no reasons whatsoever.”
The office is not the Justice Department's special counsel. It is an independent agency that “investigates and prosecutes violations of 'prohibited personnel practices' like whistleblower retaliation, enforces ethics laws like the Hatch Act, and protects employment rights of military veterans,” NPR reported. Federal law says the special counsel may be removed “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Dellinger, nominated by President Biden, was sworn in on March 6, 2024. On February 10, 2025, Trump named Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins acting head of both the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics, two agencies “whose leaders the president had recently fired,” Government Executive reported.
Dellinger sued, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson kept him in office. The Supreme Court declined to act on the administration's emergency request on February 21, holding it in abeyance over the dissent of Justices Gorsuch and Alito. On March 1 Judge Jackson ruled that “the statute is not unconstitutional,” describing the question as whether the president can be barred from removing the special counsel “on a whim or out of personal animus.” On March 5 a unanimous D.C. Circuit panel paused her ruling; its order “gives effect to the removal,” and its March 10 opinion said “the government has shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits.” Dellinger dropped the case on March 6: “Given the circuit court's adverse ruling, I think my odds of ultimately prevailing before the Supreme Court are long.” No court issued a final ruling on the merits.
During the weeks he was back in office, Dellinger asked the Merit Systems Protection Board to pause the firing of probationary federal employees, writing that “Firing probationary employees without individualized cause appears contrary to a reasonable reading of the law,” and CNN reported his requests were bringing nearly 6,000 Agriculture Department workers back to their jobs. No source shows the firing was retaliation for that work, which came after it. The D.C. Circuit cited the requests as evidence that he “exercises at least enough authority to contradict the President's directives.” Under acting leadership the office reversed course: its 2025 annual report says it had “determined that they do not constitute PPPs,” meaning the mass firings were not prohibited personnel practices. Jamieson Greer became acting special counsel on March 21, 2025.
Trump's first nominee for the post, former podcast host Paul Ingrassia, withdrew on October 21, 2025 “after his offensive text messages were made public and GOP senators revolted,” the AP reported; Senate Majority Leader John Thune had said, “He's not going to pass.” In 2026 the Senate confirmed Charles Baldis, a senior lawyer at the office, whom Trump nominated in May. In June 2026 the Supreme Court held in Trump v. Slaughter that the for-cause removal protection for Federal Trade Commission members is unconstitutional (The Supreme Court Lets Trump Fire Independent-Agency Members at Will, Overruling a 90-Year Precedent in a 6-3 Decision). Dellinger said on leaving: “My fight to stay on the job was not for me, but rather for the ideal that OSC should be as Congress intended: an independent watchdog and a safe, trustworthy place for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing and be protected from retaliation.” Related: Trump Fired 17 Inspectors General by Friday-Night Email, Without the 30 Days' Notice the Law Requires and Trump Removed an FEC Commissioner and Nominated No One for a Year. The Election Regulator Still Can't Enforce the Law..