"You're fired!"
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CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/politics/social-security-commissioner-fired-by-biden/index.html
President Joe Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul after he refused to submit his resignation as the President had requested, a White House official told CNN.
Biden had asked for the top two officials at the Social Security Administration to submit their resignations, the White House official told CNN, but only Saul refused. Deputy Commissioner David Black agreed to submit his resignation, the official said, and it was accepted.
"Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency's telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency's workforce, not repaired SSA's relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President's policy agenda," the White House official said.Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-fires-social-security-commissioner-andrew-saul
The Washington Post was first to report Saul's dismissal. He questioned the legality of Biden's decision in an interview with the newspaper and said he plans to be at work on Monday.
"I consider myself the term-protected Commissioner of Social Security," Saul said.
The White House recited a list of grievances against him.
"Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, not repaired SSA’s relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President’s policy agenda," a White House official said in a statement.
I don't know if the director of the SSA serves "at the pleasure of the president."Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, slammed Biden’s decision to fire Saul. He noted that both Saul and Black were confirmed by a "wide, bipartisan margin" in 2019 and had years remaining on their terms.
"Their terms didn’t expire until 2025, and there was no reasonable justification for these removals. President Biden is overtly politicizing the SSA," Grassley said in a statement. "People don’t want their retirement and benefits politicized, they just want an agency that works. We had that under Commissioner Saul."
Bring the popcorn (and the lawyers).
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They should replace him with somebody named Paul.
Rand Paul, maybe.
Or how about Ru?
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It‘s Trump’s own doing. Trump wanted to remove that head of the CFPB that was similarly term-protected and approved by the Senate, so Trump sued to have that power all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled, basically along partisan line, that the President does indeed have the power to fire this type of “single head of agency” positions. Now Biden gets to weild the power given to the Presidency by Trump and the Supreme Court conservative majority’s doing. FWIW, the same power were also exercised recently to fire the head of the federal housing administration.
