A court has rejected the request of two former Trump administration officials to be reinstated on the U.S. Naval Academy board.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and former Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought’s motion to be returned to the board while they sue President Joe Biden for removing them from their positions, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
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The former Trump administration officials filed the suit in September after the Biden administration pushed out more than a dozen people serving on the military service academy advisory boards.
Friedrich rejected Spicer and Vought’s claim that their removal would “silence dissenting views” on the board in an order filed on Saturday.
The pair of former officials “give no indication that their views on the governance of the Naval Academy actually differ from the other board members,” the judge said. “Nor do they explain how it would serve the public interest to present advice to the president — the primary function of the board — that the president does not intend to consider.”
The suit was filed on their behalf by America First Legal, which said at the time in a statement, “This illegal partisan power-grab is just another example of the Biden administration breaking longstanding bipartisan norms and traditions.”
Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Michael Wynne, former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, retired Gen. John Keane, Meaghan Mobbs, David Urban, Heidi Stirrup, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor, and John Coale were also asked to submit their resignations.
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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the suspension of all military academy oversight boards last February while they conducted a review following a flurry of last-second appointments by the previous administration.
