WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
President Donald Trump, left, walks with Col. Paul Pawluk, Vice Commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, from Marine One to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, March 28, 2025, en route to Florida for the weekend. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Chinese military announced large-scale drills in the waters around Taiwan on Tuesday as it again warned the self-ruled island against seeking independence.
The joint exercises involve navy, air ground and rocket forces and are meant to be a “severe warning and forceful containment against Taiwan independence,” according to Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command.
China considers Taiwan a part of its territory, to be brought under its control by force if necessary, while most Taiwanese favor their de facto independence and democratic status.
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence said it had tracked 19 Chinese navy vessels in the waters surrounding the island in a 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Monday until 6 a.m. Tuesday.
It added that it had been tracking the movement of the Shandong aircraft carrier since Saturday and that the carrier group had entered into Taiwan's identification zone, a self-defined area tracked by the military.
“I want to say these actions amply reflect its destruction of regional peace and stability,” said Taiwan's Defense Minister Wellington Koo.
Taiwan has set up a central response group to monitor the latest exercises, Koo said.
China's Coast Guard also announced it was conducting a “law enforcement patrol” on Tuesday around Taiwan, its spokesperson Zhu Anqin said.
The drills come just two weeks after a large-scale exercise in mid-March, when Beijing sent a large number of drones and ships toward the island.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office said the exercises were directed at Lai Ching-te, Taiwan's president.
“Lai Ching-te stubbornly insists on a ‘Taiwan independence’ stance, brazenly labeling the mainland as a ‘foreign hostile force,’ and has put forward a so-called “17-point strategy ... stirring up anti-China sentiments,” said China’s Taiwan Affairs Office in a statement on Tuesday. “We will not tolerate or condone this in any way and must resolutely counter and severely punish these actions.”
In mid-March, Taiwan’s Lai put forward a 17-point strategy aimed at shoring up Taiwan’s national security. The points include allowing espionage cases to be tried by military courts and making immigration rules stricter for Chinese citizens applying for permanent residency.
China’s PLA also released a series of videos to publicize their military exercise, including one in which they depict Lai as a green parasite “poisoning” the island by hatching smaller parasites. The video shows Lai’s head on the body of a bulbous green worm, with a pair of chopsticks picking him up and roasting him over a flame set over Taiwan.
Beijing sends warplanes and navy vessels toward the island on a daily basis, seeking to wear down Taiwanese defenses and morale, although the vast majority of the island’s 23 million people reject its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. In recent years, it has stepped up the scope and scale of these exercises, from sending just fighter planes to sending groups of planes, drones and ships.
Most Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo, in which Taiwan is self-ruled.
“The PLA organized naval and air forces to practice subjects such as sea and land strikes, focusing on testing the troops’ ability to carry out precision strikes on some key targets of the Taiwan authorities from multiple directions,” said Zhang Chi, a professor at China's National Defense University in a CCTV interview.
Faced with the rising threat from China, Taiwan has ordered new missiles, aircraft and other armaments from the U.S., while revitalizing its own defense industry.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war 76 years ago, but tensions have risen in recent years as communication between the two governments has stopped.
Wu reported from Bangkok.
This image released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense shows China’s Shandong aircraft carrier sailing near Taiwan on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
This photograph released by Taiwan Ministry of National Defense taken from a Taiwan Air Force P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft, shows a Chinese Cloud Shadow WZ-10 drone near Taiwan, Monday, March 17, 2025. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
