By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump’s administration on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the Republican president to remove the head of the government’s Copyright Office while her legal challenge to his firing of her plays out in the latest battle over his targeting of various federal officials.
The U.S. Justice Department asked the justices to put on hold a lower court’s ruling that blocked Trump from firing Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter. In a filing to the justices, the department argued that Trump acted within his powers as president to fire Perlmutter and that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lacked the authority to reinstate her.
The justices requested a response from Perlmutter by November 10.
The Justice Department declined to comment. A spokesperson for Democracy Forward, the legal organization representing Perlmutter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress.
Perlmutter was notified by email on May 10 that Trump had fired her. Perlmutter on May 22 filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of her ouster. The lawsuit said that only the Librarian of Congress can appoint or remove her.
In this case, Trump fired Perlmutter and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, and then moved to install his own acting Librarian of Congress. The lawsuit said Trump lacked the authority to appoint an acting Librarian of Congress.
Perlmutter’s removal provoked a backlash from Democratic lawmakers who said that the Copyright Office under law is insulated from political interference.
The lawsuit noted that Perlmutter’s firing came one day after her office issued a report that found that the unauthorized use by technology companies of copyrighted works to train generative artificial intelligence systems may not always be legal. Perlmutter said in her appeal that Trump later made public statements contradicting the report’s conclusions, and she called her firing part of an attempted “takeover” of the office.
Washington-based U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, rejected Perlmutter’s request to preliminarily block her firing, finding she had not suffered “irreparable harm” that would justify reinstating her.
The D.C. Circuit subsequently reinstated Perlmutter temporarily in September. Circuit Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, said the administration’s alleged “blatant interference” with Perlmutter’s duty to advise Congress on copyright issues “strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before.”
The U.S. Constitution divides the powers of the U.S. government among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to allow the implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
The court has in a series of decisions in recent months allowed Trump to remove various officials. It has scheduled arguments in two cases involving presidential powers to remove certain types of officials, involving his moves to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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