Media Roundup: “Supreme Court Leaves Copyright Official Targeted by Trump in Place For Now”

From Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court postponed on Wednesday a decision on whether to let Donald Trump remove the government’s top copyright official, leaving her in place for now in the latest battle over the Republican president’s targeting of federal officials.

The justices declined to immediately resolve the Justice Department’s request to lift a lower court’s ruling that had blocked Trump’s firing of Shira Perlmutter as the U.S. register of copyrights and U.S. Copyright Office director while her legal challenge to her removal proceeds.

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From the Associated Press:

Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have allowed Perlmutter to be fired as her lawsuit proceeds. The court majority, though, decided to wait to make a decision until after they rule in two other lawsuits over Trump firings.

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From SCOTUS Blog:

The present dispute began on May 10, one day after the Copyright Office released a pre-publication version of a report on artificial intelligence that made recommendations with which Trump allegedly disagreed. Perlmutter, whose position is known as the Register of Copyrights, received an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office notifying her that she had been fired, “effective immediately.”

Perlmutter urged the justices to leave the D.C. Circuit’s order in place. The Library of Congress, she contended, is not an “executive agency.” To the contrary, she argued, the D.C. Circuit has already said, in a different case, that it is not, and “Congress has elsewhere regulated the Library as part of the legislative branch.” Therefore, she wrote, the president did not have the power to fire Hayden and appoint Blanche. And if Blanche was not validly appointed, Perlmutter continued, he did not have the power to fire her.

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Filed under: Jobs, Libraries, News, Roundup