A federal appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to rehire intelligence officers who were fired over their temporary assignments working on diversity issues, saying spy agencies had to uphold the employees’ constitutional right to due process.
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The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence failed to abide by their own regulations when they fired 19 career intelligence officers, the three-judge panel ruled in a 2-1 decision.
The intelligence officers previously argued their firings were “arbitrary” and “unsupported by any evidentiary record whatsoever.” They also maintained that they should have been reassigned to new duties instead of being penalized for jobs a previous administration ordered them to carry out.
Attorneys representing the government argued that the head of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and the director of national intelligence had unfettered authority to terminate employees with or without cause.
Kevin Carroll, the lawyer representing the intelligence officers in the case, welcomed the court’s decision.
“We are gratified by the Court of Appeals upholding the District Court’s injunction. Intelligence officers have due process rights, too,” Carroll said in a statement.
The CIA director and the acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, now “ought to get these good Americans back to work for our country,” Carroll said.
The judges’ ruling said the key question before the court was whether the intelligence agencies’ termination rules granted an employee the right to be considered for reassignment and to appeal a termination decision. “We find that it does,” the appeals court wrote.
It remained unclear when the intelligence officers at the CIA and the intelligence director’s office would be rehired and given new assignments. In the meantime, the Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling.
The CIA and the intelligence director’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
