A judge dealt a setback to Trump’s power by ruling his administration broke the law by firing a civil servant, per Politico.
According to reporting by Politico, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law when it fired Mary Comans, the chief financial officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), without going through congressionally mandated steps.
“This is huge,” said Mark Zaid, one of Comans’ lawyers, according to Politico. “It’s an incredibly significant victory.”
U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee, dismissed arguments that Trump’s power over the executive branch gave officials the right to fire Comans last year without giving her a hearing or the right to transfer to another job, Politico reported.
According to Politico, Nachmanoff said that the Trump administration was trying to overturn a Supreme Court precedent, including an 1886 ruling that upheld congressional authority to set rules for the removal of executive branch officials.
“For the last 140 years…the Supreme Court has affirmed the president does not have plenary power to remove inferior officers,” Nachmanoff said from the bench, per Politico.
Comans and several of her colleagues were fired in February 2025 amid a cost-cutting drive by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to Politico. She was accused of going around higher-ups to authorize almost $60 million in payments to New York City for hotel rooms for undocumented immigrants, per Politico.
Attorneys for Comans said that Nachmanoff’s ruling is the first to hold that firings under the second Trump administration went too far, according to Politico.
“Today is a victory for every civil servant,” Comans told Politico.