'Follow the law as it stands': Judge rules against Trump admin, sides with FEMA official axed during DOGE firing spree

A federal judge has rejected arguments by the Trump administration and ruled in favor of a sacked Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official in a long-running case over federal firing power.

In February 2025, Mary Comans and other FEMA top brass were axed as the erstwhile Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) made its way – and firing suggestions – through the federal government.

In March 2025, Comans sued the White House, alleging she was “unlawfully terminated” and defamed by then-unofficial DOGE leader Elon Musk, Law&Crime previously reported.

Now, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Joe Biden appointee, has ruled for the plaintiff, finding that the Trump administration failed to follow the rules laid out by Congress for terminating civil servants.

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“For the last 140 years,” the judge said, according to a courtroom report by Politico, “the Supreme Court has affirmed the president does not have plenary power to remove inferior officers.”

To hear the court tell it, the Trump administration was effectively angling to overturn longstanding precedent in the case. But that precedent, from an 1886 ruling, still stands, Nachmanoff said.

In that 19th-century case, the nation’s high court found that when Congress gives agencies the power to appoint inferior officers, it can subsequently set strict – or at least precise – rules for how such “inferior officers” are removed in the name of the public interest.

The language and format of the ancient decision – in a case about a naval officer – is a far cry from a modern high court ruling.

The ruling reads, in relevant part:

We have no doubt that when Congress, by law, vests the appointment of inferior officers in the heads of departments, it may limit and restrict the power of removal as it deems best for the public interest. The constitutional authority in Congress to thus vest the appointment implies authority to limit, restrict, and regulate the removal by such laws as Congress may enact in relation to the officers so appointed…It is further urged that this restriction of the power of removal is an infringement upon the constitutional prerogative of the executive, and so of no force, but absolutely void.

In other words, the precedent in the case, titled U.S. v. Perkins, also considers the matter completely irrelevant to the topic or question of executive power. The decision distinguishes between inferior-officer hiring and firing and presidential appointments, in line with the advice and consent clause of the U.S. Constitution.

And, for now at least, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia says the Perkins rule governs Comans’ case.

“Judicial restraint requires that this court follow the law as it stands today,” Nachmanoff said.

While the court ruled for the plaintiff on the merits, the relief does not include an immediate return to her position or even to FEMA’s payroll. Rather, the judge found that Comans is entitled to a “name clearing hearing” to address the allegations against her. That hearing, Nachmanoff said, would likely be held before a magistrate judge.

The plaintiff’s legal team welcomed the verdict.

“The Comans ruling interprets 140 years of Supreme Court precedent and decided that neither the President of the United States nor his subordinates can fire civil servants without lawful due process,” attorney Mark Zaid told Law&Crime. “It is a landmark victory that limits the malicious spread of this administration’s adoption of the unitary executive theory.”

The post ‘Follow the law as it stands’: Judge rules against Trump admin, sides with FEMA official axed during DOGE firing spree first appeared on Law & Crime.