Appeals court halts firing of Copyright Office head Shira Perlmutter

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Sep 10, 2025

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WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ordered Shira Perlmutter reinstated Wednesday as the register of copyrights at the Library of Congress, as she challenges her firing in the Trump administration’s effort to assert control over the legislative branch agency.

The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would let her continue in her role. Perlmutter was removed from her post at the library in May after President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, and a lower court judge that month had denied her request to block her termination.

Judge Florence Pan wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Judge J. Michelle Childs, noting Perlmutter works for Congress and should not be considered the same as executive officials Trump can remove at will.

Removing Perlmutter from her post is “a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Pan wrote.

In an order, they granted Perlmutter’s request for an injunction against Trump administration officials to not interfere with her work as the register of copyrights while the court case plays out.

Pan wrote that the president does not have the authority to remove an official from another branch of government, especially because of the alleged disagreement with Perlmutter’s conclusions in a report about the risks of artificial intelligence.

“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,” Pan wrote.

Wednesday’s order will likely be appealed by the Trump administration to the full D.C. Circuit or to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis, where the Trump administration has frequently won.

Judge Justin Walker dissented from the decision and wrote that he would have denied Perlmutter’s motion. Walker wrote that Perlmutter’s position overseeing copyright law meant she exercised the sort of “executive power” that the Supreme Court stated meant the president had the power to remove her.

“Recently, repeatedly, and unequivocally, the Supreme Court has stayed lower-court injunctions that barred the President from removing officers exercising executive power,” Walker wrote.

Walker analogized Perlmutter’s firing to Trump’s removal of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne A. Wilcox, which the Supreme Court allowed Trump to do earlier this year while Wilcox’s challenge to her removal plays out in court.

So far this term Trump has fired dozens of officials and board members in a push to reshape the federal government and purge those with perceived disloyalty.

After firing Hayden, Trump moved to install Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting head of the library. Current law provides that the president appoints the Librarian of Congress, who is confirmed by the Senate. The librarian of Congress then appoints the register of copyrights.

The firings of Hayden and Perlmutter touched a nerve in Congress, and Democrats have argued that they should change the law to remove the president from having a say in who runs a congressional agency.

Pan also wrote that part of the decision is based on an argument Blanche is likely not serving lawfully as the acting librarian of Congress, as the federal vacancy law used by the Trump administration to appoint him as librarian applies only to executive agencies, not the library. That meant that Blanche’s chosen register of copyrights, DOJ official Paul Perkins, was likely not lawful either, she wrote.

Perlmutter sued after her firing, arguing that only a properly appointed librarian of Congress could fire her, which Blanche was not.

The case is Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office v. Todd Blanche, in his capacity as the person claiming to be acting Librarian of Congress, et al.