Supreme Court Won’t Let Trump Fire Copyright Office Chief for Now

A federal appeals court previously held that Shira Perlmutter could stay on as register of copyrights while the lawsuit plays out.

The Supreme Court with the copper dome of the Library of Congress on the right, in Washington on Sept. 11, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 26 put off ruling on whether President Donald Trump may fire the director of the U.S. Copyright Office until after it rules on the president’s firing of two members of independent agencies.

The new ruling allows Shira Perlmutter to remain in office as Register of Copyrights until at least early in the new year.

The federal government’s emergency application filed Oct. 27 sought to uphold Perlmutter’s firing after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the government earlier this year.

Perlmutter sued the Trump administration after she was fired in May, arguing that the termination violated federal law.

The Supreme Court’s new order in Blanche v. Perlmutter said that the government’s application to stay a lower court ruling keeping Perlmutter in office is “deferred” until the high court rules on Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member Rebecca Slaughter and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying he would have granted the application. He did not explain why.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the Slaughter case on Dec. 8, and on Jan. 21, 2026, in the Cook case.

On Sept. 22, the Supreme Court provisionally upheld the president’s authority to fire Slaughter, which means she is not currently sitting as a member of the FTC. The Trump administration said it fired her over policy differences.

Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow him to fire Cook, but on Oct. 1, the high court deferred its ruling on that request, and said it would hold an oral argument in January on the issue. Cook remains a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, at least for now. The Trump administration said Cook should not serve at the Fed because she allegedly committed mortgage fraud before joining the Fed. She has denied the allegation.

The Copyright Office, a department within the Library of Congress, registers copyright claims, stores information about copyright ownership, gives information to the public, and helps Congress and other government offices with copyright-related matters. The president appoints the head of the library, known as the librarian of Congress, and has the authority to fire that official.

The librarian of Congress, in turn, appoints the head of the Copyright Office, who is known as the register of copyrights.

Although the Library of Congress is part of the legislative branch of the federal government, the Trump administration argues the president is allowed to fire Perlmutter because she exercises executive branch powers by issuing regulations and enforcing copyright law.

The president also fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on May 8, two days before removing Perlmutter. Hayden did not challenge her dismissal. The president appointed Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting librarian—an appointment Perlmutter argues is unlawful because the Library of Congress is not an executive agency and is not governed by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

Perlmutter, who was appointed by Hayden in 2020, said Trump’s decision to install Blanche violated separation-of-powers principles and usurped Congress’s authority. The separation of powers is a constitutional doctrine that divides the government into three branches to prevent any single branch from accumulating too much power.

Perlmutter also alleges that Blanche’s designation of Department of Justice official Paul Perkins to assume her position had no legal basis.

A federal district court declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the firing of Perlmutter. Later, a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit granted an injunction, restoring Perlmutter to the office while the lawsuit plays out.

The circuit court held in its Sept. 10 ruling that Perlmutter’s removal was “likely unlawful.”

“The Librarian of Congress—not the President—is authorized by the statute to appoint the Register,” the court said.

“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 advice to which the court referred was Perlmutter’s release of a report on using copyrighted materials to train generative AI models.

Perlmutter’s lawsuit came nearly two weeks after the Copyright Office unveiled the report saying that some uses of copyrighted material to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems may require licensing under U.S. law. The report, issued under Perlmutter’s leadership, found that although some AI training could qualify as “fair use,” other training likely would not.

The president “allegedly disagreed” with the recommendations in the report, the ruling said, and the following day—a Saturday—the White House informed Perlmutter that she was removed from her post “effective immediately,” the court said.