Appeals court, weighing Trump’s Library of Congress takeover, reinstates copyright chief; Politico, September 9, 2025

 JOSH GERSTEIN, Politico ; Appeals court, weighing Trump’s Library of Congress takeover, reinstates copyright chief

"A federal appeals court ruled the nation’s top copyright official can continue serving in her post following President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.

A divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesdaythat Shira Perlmutter is entitled to continue to serve as the register of copyrights at the Library of Congress, despite the White House’s claim that Trump fired her from the post in May.

While the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit have permitted Trump to fire a range of executive branch officials who claimed they were protected from dismissal, judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs concluded that Perlmutter’s case was stronger because she doesn’t exercise significant executive power in her job.

“Because Perlmutter leads an agency that is housed in the Legislative Branch and her primary role is to advise Congress, Perlmutter’s situation differs significantly from the Executive Branch officials whose removals have been repeatedly upheld,” Pan wrote, joined by Childs. Both are appointees of former President Joe Biden.

Perlmutter was dismissed days after Trump moved to fire Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who has not sought to challenge her ouster in court. The president’s move onto what has traditionally been legislative branch turf has vexed Democrats and some congressional Republicans.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said Perlmutter’s claims were too similar to cases the Supreme Court ruled on earlier this year where the justices upheld, for now, Trump’s power to fire members of labor-related boards and the Consumer Product Safety Commission."

Congress’s Knowledge at Risk: The Constitutional Stakes in the Perlmutter Case; The National Law Review, August 18, 2025

 Jim W. Ko of The Sedona Conference, The National Law Review; Congress’s Knowledge at Risk: The Constitutional Stakes in the Perlmutter Case

"Do all federal employees “serve at the pleasure of the President”? That question, usually tucked away in the margins of constitutional law, now sits at the center of one of the most consequential disputes of our time.

When President Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office (formally the Register of Copyrights),1 the move appeared—at first glance—to be the straightforward exercise of presidential authority. After all, presidents hire and fire their own officers; the Librarian of Congress is a presidential appointee; and the Copyright Office sits within the Library.

But a closer look reveals that this case is not about ordinary personnel management. It is about whether the President can extend his reach into Congress’s own library, and in so doing, compromise both the constitutional separation of powers and the First Amendment’s guarantee against viewpoint discrimination."