WASHINGTON, Feb 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The Trump administration has approached 
the Supreme Court to get the head of a US agency protecting federal staff and 
whistleblowers fired, US media reported.

It is the first time that President Donald Trump has resorted to the 
conservative-dominated court as his blitz to slash public spending and 
dismantle federal agencies hits legal challenges.

The White House fired Hampton Dellinger on February 7 as head of the Office 
of Special Counsel but Dellinger sued the president and a district court 
ordered he be reinstated.

The US Court of Appeals on Saturday then rejected the Trump administration's 
request to overrule the decision.

The emergency appeal filed to the Supreme Court on Sunday branded this an 
"unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate 
relief," according to a copy posted online by US newspapers.

It added that "until now, as far as we are aware, no court in American 
history has wielded an injunction to force the President to retain an agency 
head whom the President believes should not be entrusted with executive power 
and to prevent the President from relying on his preferred replacement."

It warned that the New York court's intervention "exemplifies a broader, 
weeks-long trend", adding that the Supreme Court should "not allow the 
judiciary to govern by temporary restraining order and supplant the political 
accountability the Constitution ordains."

Trump, who began his second term last month, has launched a campaign led by 
his top donor Elon Musk, to downsize or dismantle swaths of the US 
government.

But he has faced growing pushback from the courts with around a dozen court 
orders issued against the administration from some 40 lawsuits.

This includes an attempt to freeze $3 trillion in federal grants and loans, a 
deferred resignation program for government workers and a plan to transfer 
transgender women inmates to men's prisons.

He has also clashed with judges over his abolition of birthright citizenship, 
sending Venezuelan migrants to Guantanamo Bay, funding cuts to the National 
Institutes of Health, and placing workers from the US Agency for 
International Development (USAID) on leave.