President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The U.S. Department of Justice is urging a federal appeals court to reconsider its earlier ruling and once again clear the way for the removal of the U.S. register of copyrights.
Attorney Shira Perlmutter served as register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, which operates within the Library of Congress, from October 2020 through early May 2025.
On May 8, 2025, President Donald Trump dismissed both Perlmutter and the librarian of Congress. Trump replaced the librarian with Todd Blanche, his former criminal defense lawyer and the current U.S. attorney general. Blanche then sought to install a Justice Department official in Perlmutter’s place, prompting her to file a lawsuit.
Perlmutter’s effort to reclaim her position has faced significant legal hurdles.
In July 2025, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who was appointed by Trump, rejected her request for an injunction. Kelly concluded that Perlmutter had not demonstrated she would suffer irreparable harm if the court declined to intervene.
Two months later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an injunction while the case moved forward. A divided panel temporarily returned Perlmutter to her post, reasoning that the register’s position was legislative in character. On that basis, the judges said Trump’s attempt to remove her raised separation-of-powers concerns.
The Justice Department is now asking the D.C. Circuit to uphold the district court’s original decision and permit the Trump administration to remove Perlmutter and choose her replacement at the Copyright Office.
“The decision cannot be reconciled with decisions of this Court and the Supreme Court, which make clear that the librarian and register exercise executive power and thus must be components of the Executive Branch for constitutional purposes,” the government argues in its 71-page appellate brief.
According to the DOJ, a series of recent Supreme Court rulings has undercut the earlier legal analysis. Those decisions, the department says, confirmed that the president generally has authority to dismiss political appointees without demonstrating cause, with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as a notable exception.
The government’s position is that the removal protections Perlmutter is relying on no longer stand, making her dismissal legally unavoidable.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Slaughter, the DOJ argues that presidential removal authority extends to all “subordinates who exercise the President’s power”—from “the lowest officers” to those in the highest ranks.
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The Justice Department further contends that Perlmutter has modified her legal strategy since the appeals court granted her temporary relief.
“Now at the merits stage, plaintiff has essentially abandoned the panel majority’s reasoning, and for good reason,” the government wrote.
Perlmutter’s 72-page opening brief, however, continues to argue that the Library of Congress is a legislative agency. It also presents an alternative claim: that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act would have prevented the president from appointing Blanche to lead the agency in the first place.
She also argues that because the president cannot directly appoint the register of copyrights—an inferior officer—he likewise lacks direct authority to dismiss that official.
The DOJ says those positions cannot be reconciled.
“The upshot of plaintiff’s position—and the effect of the injunction pending appeal—is that the President may neither designate an Acting Librarian who can remove plaintiff, nor remove her himself,” the department wrote. “Plaintiff is thus exercising executive power outside the control and supervision of the President in whom such power is vested.”
The Justice Department warns that leaving the arrangement in place could itself produce a separation-of-powers conflict, with Perlmutter exercising what it characterizes as executive authority beyond the president’s oversight.
The government’s brief lays out that argument in detail:
[I]f the President may neither designate an Acting Librarian nor remove plaintiff directly, he may achieve her removal only by appointing a new Librarian with the Senate’s advice and consent. And if the Senate does not consent to a new appointment, plaintiff could continue serving as Register indefinitely. This would hand the Senate an effective veto on the President’s removal of the Register, violating the basic rule that Congress may not “draw to itself, or to either [House], the power to remove or the right to participate in the exercise of that power.”
The DOJ argues for unvarnished executive power to close its brief.
“[E]ven if the panel majority were correct that the Register exercises only some executive power, that still would counsel against the issuance of a preliminary injunction,” the filing goes on. “Article II vests the entire executive power—not just ‘considerable or substantial; parts of it—in the President alone.”
The post Trump admin argues for vast presidential firing power in bid to remove copyright official for the 2nd time in 2 years after DC Circuit reversed lower court and defied Todd Blanche first appeared on Law & Crime.
