Former Trump spokesman Sean Spicer and budget chief Russ Vought are suing President Joe Biden for firing them from military boards. The two former Trump aides allege Biden’s overt power play in firing them and forcing out other Trump appointees is illegal and the White House does not have any authority over the boards.
Earlier in September, Joe Biden issued curt letters to a number of Trump-appointed individuals on various boards created by Congress saying they must resign or be fired. The board’s members leave only when their three-year term is up, they resign, or they die.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Spicer, a captain in the U.S. Naval Reserves, had only three months left to serve on the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Naval Academy, so targeting him was especially petty. Vought was a more recent appointee.
In an effort to shame the Trump allies off the boards, White House press secretary Jen Psaki questioned the qualifications and values of Spicer and the former Trump aides, an unusual assault on her predecessors that Spicer said smeared their military and government service.
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal’s vice president and general counsel, said, “For a president who has pledged to unify the country, terminating two highly qualified individuals from serving on this board instead of focusing on the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Americans stranded, is clearly an attempt to distract the American people. The administration is clearly trying to avoid the oversight that Congress set out to achieve.”
He also called Spicer and Vought patriots and added, “President Biden’s threatened dismissal of them from the purely advisory Board of Visitors — an entity that exercises no executive power whatsoever — violates the law. Our clients have every right to serve every single day remaining in their terms. But even if the Biden administration prevails in its arguments, President Biden has perhaps unwittingly created a precedent that will be followed by all future administrations.”
The suit was filed on behalf of Spicer and Vought by America First Legal.
In a statement from America First Legal slammed Biden’s unprecedented move. “This illegal partisan power-grab is just another example of the Biden administration breaking longstanding bipartisan norms and traditions,” the firm said.
