An appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump can fire two board members of independent agencies handling labor issues from their respective posts in the federal government.
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to lift orders blocking the Trump administration from removing Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.
On March 4, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that Trump illegally tried to fire Harris. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that Trump did not have the authority to remove Wilcox.
The Justice Department asked the appellate court to suspend those orders while they appeal the decisions.
President Joe Biden nominated Harris to the MSPB in 2021 and nominated Wilcox to a second five-year term as an NLRB member in 2023.
Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, said the administration likely will succeed in showing that the statutory removal protections for NLRB and MSPB members are unconstitutional.
“The Government has also shown that it will suffer irreparable harm each day the President is deprived of the ability to control the executive branch,” Walker wrote.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush, wrote an opinion concurring with Walker. Henderson said she agrees with Walker on many of the “general principles” about the contours of presidential power under the Constitution.
Judge Patricia Millett, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote a dissenting opinion. She said her two colleagues on the case “rewrite controlling Supreme Court precedent and ignore binding rulings of this court, all in favor of putting this court in direct conflict with at least two other circuits.”
“The stay decision also marks the first time in history that a court of appeals, or the Supreme Court, has licensed the termination of members of multimember adjudicatory boards statutorily protected by the very type of removal restriction the Supreme Court has twice unanimously upheld,” Millett wrote.
Government lawyers argued that Trump had the authority to remove both board members. In Wilcox’s case, they said Howell’s “unprecedented order works a grave harm to the separation of powers and undermines the President’s ability to exercise his authority under the Constitution.” They also argued that MSPB members like Harris are removable “at will” by the president.
Wilcox’s attorneys said Trump couldn’t fire her without notice, a hearing or identifying any “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” on her part. They argued that the administration’s “only path to victory” is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to “adopt a more expansive view of presidential power.”
Harris’ attorneys claimed the administration was asking the appeals court to ignore Supreme Court precedent.
“Make no mistake: The government’s radical theory would upend the law,” they wrote. “It would jeopardize not only this board, but also the Federal Reserve Board and other critical entities, like the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
The five-member NLRB lacked a quorum after Wilcox’s removal. The three-member MSPB enforces civil rights law in the workplace.
Japan’s trade minister said this week that he has failed to win assurances from U.S. officials that the key U.S. ally will be exempt from tariffs, some of which take effect on Wednesday.
Yoji Muto was in Washington for last ditch negotiations over the tariffs on a range of Japanese exports including cars, steel and aluminum.
Muto said Monday in Washington that Japan, which contributes to the U.S. economy by heavily investing and creating jobs in the United States, “should not be subject to” 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto exports to America.
His meetings with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett came just two days before the steel and aluminum tariffs are due to take effect. President Donald Trump has also said a possible 25% tariff on imported foreign autos could take effect in early April.
Muto said the U.S. officials acknowledged Japanese contributions and agreed to continue talks, but did not approve his request for Japan’s exemption from the steep import duties.
“We did not receive a response that Japan will be exempt,” Muto told reporters. “We must continue to assert our position.”
As Trump’s tariff threats have triggered tensions and vows of retaliation from Canada, Mexico and China, Japan has been working to firm up ties with other countries.
Last week, the foreign and trade ministers from Japan and Britain gathered in Tokyo for their first “two-plus-two” economic dialogue. They agreed to stand up for “fair, rules-based international trade,” though nobody directly mentioned Trump.
Japan depends heavily on exports and the auto tariffs would hurt, because vehicles are its biggest export and the United States is their top destination.
“Clearly companies in Japan are very concerned,” said Rintaro Nishimura, political analyst and associate at Japan Practice of The Asia Group. “Obviously the auto is the crown jewel for Japan, especially in the context of these tariffs.” He says they are concerned also because the Trump administration is carrying it out in just two months after taking office.
Trump also has criticized Japan’s contributions to the two countries’ mutual defense arrangements, adding to tensions with Tokyo.
Muto said the two sides agreed to keep discussing to find ways to establish a “win-win” relationship that would serve national interests of both countries.
The two sides also discussed energy cooperation, including joint development of liquefied natural gas reserves in Alaska, which Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed on during Ishiba’s visit to the White House in February.
Hundreds of protesters broke into Mexico’s Senate on Tuesday as lawmakers weighed a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, forcing the body to take a temporary recess for the safety of the senators.
The shut down came just hours after Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, wrangled the votes it needed to jam through the proposal after one member of an opposition party flipped to support it.
That move and other political maneuvering ahead of a vote on the plan championed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador fueled even more outrage after weeks of protests by judicial employees and law students.
Critics and observers say the plan, in which all judges would be elected, could threaten judicial independence and undermine the system of checks and balances.
Some protesters entered the Senate chambers in an effort to block the vote after they said lawmakers were not listening to their demands. Protesters broke through the door of the Senate chamber pushing aggressively, using pipes and chains. At least one person fainted after protesters broke in.
“The judiciary isn’t going to fall,” yelled the protesters, waving Mexican flags and signs against the overhaul. They were joined by a number of opposition senators as they chanted in the chamber. Others outside the court roared when newscasters announced the Senate was taking a recess.
Among them was Alejandro Navarrete, a 30-year-old judicial worker, who said that people like him working in the courts “knowing the danger the reform represents” came to call on the Senate to strike down the proposal.
“They have decided to sell out the nation, and sell out for political capital they were offered, we felt obligated to enter the Senate,” he said, carrying a Mexican flag. “Our intention is not violent, we didn’t intend to hurt them, but we intend to make it clear that the Mexican people won’t allow them to lead us into a dictatorship.”
Despite unrest in recent weeks, the plan sailed through the lower chamber of Congress last week, and was passed onto the Senate, where López Obrador’s Morena party lacked the necessary supermajority to approve it. In recent weeks, it was able to peel off two senators from an opposition party, but came into this week still missing one more.
It was unclear where that vote would come from because the country’s opposition vehemently opposes the plan. But over the weekend, observers began to speculate that a senator from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez, would support Morena as he refused to answer calls from his party leadership.
On Tuesday, Yunes Márquez announced he would take leave due to health issues and be replaced by his father, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, a former governor of Veracruz said he would vote for the plan. He said he knew the plan was “not the best” but said more laws down the line could improve it.
“Mexico is not going to be destroyed for approving this reform, nor will the reform automatically change the reality of a justice system that is calling out for fundamental change,” Yunes Linares said.
Yunes Linares strolled into the Senate chambers and was met with applause and chants of “hero!” by Morena senators and screams of “traitor!” from his own party. One PAN senator, Lilly Téllez, even threw dozens of coins at Yunes Linares, calling him a ”traitor who sold out his country” for his own benefit. A Senate vote was expected Wednesday.
The national head of PAN, Marko Cortés, claimed that it “is evident” that there was an “impunity pact” between the Yuneses and the government so he would vote in favor of the overhaul. Cortés was referring to a July arrest order for Sen. Yunes Márquez, for alleged falsification of documents and fraud related to his candidacy.
Yunes had challenged it and got a temporary suspension, calling it a political persecution by the governing Morena party, the same party his father now appears ready to support.
His father, Yunes Linares, dodged questions from the media about how he would vote but accused Cortés of “lynching” him and claimed it was “absolutely false” that he has been coerced to vote for the overhaul. He was flanked by two Morena senators as he spoke.
A Yunes vote in favor would allow the ruling party to clear the biggest hurdle in making the proposal law. If it passes the Senate, it will have to be ratified by the legislatures of 17 of Mexico’s 32 states, but the governing party is believed to have the necessary support.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has backed President Nicolás Maduro’s claims that he won last month’s presidential election and said voting tallies published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
The ruling is the latest attempt by Maduro to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the contested July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader was seeking a third, six-year term.
The high court is packed with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
Its decision, read Thursday in an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response to a request by Maduro to review vote totals showing he had won by more than 1 million votes.
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.
Thanks to a superb ground game on election day, opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide and which show opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The official tally sheets printed by each voting machine carry a QR code that makes it easy for anyone to verify the results and are almost impossible to replicate.
“An attempt to judicialize the results doesn’t change the truth: we won overwhelmingly and we have the voting records to prove it,” González, standing before a Venezuelan flag, said in a video posted on social media.
The high court’s ruling certifying the results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility. Specifically, the outside experts noted that authorities didn’t release a breakdown of results by each of the 30,000 voting booths nationwide, as they have in almost every previous election.
The government has claimed — without evidence — that a foreign cyberattack staged by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the vote counting on election night and publication of the disaggregated results.
González was the only one of 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court’s audit, a fact noted by the justices, who in their ruling accused him of trying to spread panic.
The former diplomat and his chief backer, opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding after the election as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on demonstrations that erupted spontaneously throughout the country protesting the results.
Numerous foreign governments, including the U.S. as well as several allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release the full breakdown of results.
Gabriel Boric, the leftist president of Chile and one of the main critics of Maduro’s election gambit, lambasted the high court’s certification.
