Ex-Military Board Members Receive Unfavorable Ruling from Trump Appointed Judge

A panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., issued a ruling on Friday against three former Air Force Academy board members and other plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and administration officials after Biden removed them.

The former board members, who were appointed by former President Donald Trump, filed the lawsuit against Biden, the Department of Defense, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, among others, claiming that their firings were unconstitutional, as reported by Newsweek.

These three, along with three other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also alleged that their firing violated “the Administrative Procedure Act and contracts” by suspending the Boards’ operations for several months in 2021, issuing memoranda authorizing the creation of subcommittees, and removing some of the appellants from their Board positions before their terms expired.

The three judges, Gregory Katsas (a Trump appointee), Bradley Garcia (a Biden appointee), and Cornelia Pillard (appointed by former President Barack Obama), stated that the district court correctly ruled against the board members by determining that they lacked standing to challenge the temporary suspension and the subcommittee authorization. Additionally, they found that the removal claims were moot as the appellants were requesting reinstatement to now-expired terms.

The three former board members were removed from their positions in September 2021 after they refused to resign at Biden’s request. Their three-year terms were set to expire at the end of 2023.

Biden faced criticism for asking the 18 members of Trump-appointed service academy boards to resign in the fall of 2021.

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and served on the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Naval Academy, accused Biden on social media of trying to terminate Trump appointees to West Point, the Air Force Academy, and the Naval Academy instead of focusing on the stranded Americans in Afghanistan.

However, Jen Psaki, Biden’s White House press secretary at the time, defended the administration’s actions, stating that every president has the right to appoint qualified individuals who align with the administration’s priorities to various positions in the federal government.