Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the January terminations of Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felten were null and void. A third Democrat fired from the board at that time, Sharon Bradford Franklin, is not named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The PCLOB serves as a watchdog for intelligence community infringements into Americans’ civil liberties.
Board members are granted six-year terms upon confirmation to the executive branch panel, although the law allows them to stay for up to a year after their terms expire. LeBlanc, in particular, was set to remain on until 2028.
While U.S. law doesn’t expressly block the president from firing members, the court said the oversight board’s design — as a nonpartisan, expert body — conflicts with the idea of at-will presidential removal.
“The Constitution gives President [Donald] Trump the power to remove personnel who exercise his executive authority. The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW.
The ruling comes as Congress is slated next year to debate reauthorizing a contested surveillance program that allows the intelligence community and law enforcement to collect communications of foreign targets abroad without a warrant.
The ordinance — governed by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — permits U.S. spies to collect foreign targets’ conversations, including those that incidentally include U.S. persons. Privacy hawks seeking to reform the statute have often cited cases where the authority was found to ..
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