最高法院裁定：美国首席版权官员可暂时留任

Supreme Court says nation’s top copyright official can keep job for now

June 30, 2026 / 12:39 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it won’t allow President Trump to remove the nation’s top copyright official for now, leaving intact an order from a federal appeals court that restored her to the role.

The high court’s decision is a rare loss for the Trump administration in its efforts to fire officials appointed by Democrats. It comes on the heels of a ruling from the conservative wing of the bench finding that removal restrictions for members of the Federal Trade Commission were unconstitutional, a decision that expands presidential power over so-called independent agencies.

But in a separate ruling involving Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Supreme Court rejected the president’s efforts to fire her while a challenge to her firing moves forward.

The copyright dispute involves Mr. Trump’s move earlier this year to fire Shira Perlmutter, the register of copyrights. In a brief unsigned order, the high court specified that its denial of the Trump administration’s request for emergency relief “is not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.”

As register of copyrights, Perlmutter served as the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, working under the librarian of Congress. She was fired a day after releasing to Congress a report on artificial intelligence and copyright.

The president had first removed Carla Hayden from her post as librarian of Congress last year and then directed her temporary replacement to oust Perlmutter. Hayden did not challenge her termination, but Perlmutter did, arguing that because the librarian of Congress and register of copyrights are legislative officers, the president lacked the power to name an acting librarian, who in turn had no authority to remove her.

Hayden was appointed librarian of Congress in 2016, and in 2020, she tapped Perlmutter as register of copyrights.

A U.S. district court declined to let Perlmutter remain in her post while her lawsuit played out, but a divided panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit restored her to the job.

“The executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Judge Florence Pan, joined by Judge Michelle Childs, wrote in a concurring opinion.

The register of copyrights’ primary responsibility is to advise Congress on issues of copyright law and is a “unique position” within the legislative branch, Pan wrote. Additionally, under federal law, only a librarian of Congress who has been confirmed by the Senate has the power to remove Perlmutter, she said.

Mr. Trump had tapped Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, to serve as acting librarian of Congress after he removed Hayden. Pan, joined by Childs, found that Blanche’s purported appointment is also likely unlawful because any librarian appointee must be confirmed by the Senate.

“The President’s attempt to reach into the Legislative Branch to fire an official that he has no statutory authority to either appoint or remove, and to impede Congress’s ability to carry out an enumerated constitutional duty, presents a ‘genuinely extraordinary situation,’ that threatens irreparable harm to the constitutional structure of our government,” Pan wrote. “The President’s purported removal of the Legislative Branch’s chief advisor on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the President trying to fire a federal judge’s law clerk.”

The Trump administration sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court last year, arguing that both the librarian of Congress and register of copyrights fall within the executive branch and exercise executive powers.

“Treating the Librarian and Register as legislative officers would set much of federal copyright law on a collision course with the basic principle that Congress may not vest the power to execute the laws in itself or its officers,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a filing.

But in response to the administration’s bid for Supreme Court intervention, Perlmutter’s lawyers accused the Trump administration of making “an inexcusable mess of Congress’s plans for the governance of its Library.”

They argued that Blanche was not properly serving as acting librarian of Congress when he moved to oust Perlmutter, and Congress has repeatedly defined the Library of Congress as part of the legislative branch, not the executive.

Administrative officials “insist that courts are powerless to do anything about the President’s attempt to seize control of the Library of Congress, even if a court correctly concludes that the President’s actions are in reckless disregard of the law,” Perlmutter’s lawyers wrote. “Under this theory, the President’s lawless misconduct would be rewarded — creating an unchecked power that is antithetical to the Constitution’s design.”