Did any JPP lefty object when whoever was making braindead Biden's decisions fired Saul?

[Diogenes]

IF YOU DIDN'T, YOU LACK STANDING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MICHELLE KING​

Andrew Saul is a New York businessman who was nominated to be Commissioner of Social Security by President Trump in April 2018.

During the George W. Bush Administration, he chaired the Federal Thrift Investment Board, which helps to administer the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-like retirement plan for Federal employees.

The Senate failed to act on Saul’s first nomination to become commissioner before the end of that Congress in 2018, so he was renominated on Jan. 22, 2019, and ultimately confirmed by the Senate on June 4, 2019, by a 77–16 vote.

His six-year term was expected to end on Jan. 19, 2025. The situation at the beginning of the Biden Administration seemed to parallel that of 2009, when incoming President Obama had as Commissioner of Social Security Michael J. Astrue, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007 to a six-year term that ended on Jan. 19, 2013. Obama never did name a confirmed commissioner but had two long-serving acting commissioners during his second term.

Most observers expected Andrew Saul to remain in his position until the scheduled end of his term, like Michael Astrue did, but on Jan. 21, 2021, Biden’s second day in office, his Administration issued a list of “acting” officials who should be regarded as placeholders until replacements could be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Commissioner Saul was on that list, even though he had been confirmed by the Senate two years before and was certainly not “acting". Moreover, he had the protection of Social Security Act section 702(a)(3), which allowed his removal only for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.

Changes at the Social Security Administration

Discusses the recent firing of the Social Security Commissioner and the president's legal authority to do so.

www.soa.org

 

[Diogenes]

The situation changed dramatically with the United States Supreme Court’s issuance of a decision in Patrick J. Collins et al. v. Janet L. Yellen, case number 19-422.

The case revolved around statutory provisions (in the Recovery Act) limiting the president’s ability, except for cause, to remove and replace the head of an obscure Treasury Department unit called the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

The court’s opinion was fragmented but essentially unanimous. Here is the relevant part:

The Recovery Act’s for-cause restriction on the President’s removal authority violates the separation of powers. Indeed, our decision last Term in Seila Law is all but dispositive. There, we held that Congress could not limit the President’s power to remove the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to instances of “inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance.” We did “not revisit our prior decisions allowing certain limitations on the President’s removal power,” but we found “compelling reasons not to extend those precedents to the novel context of an independent agency led by a single Director.” “Such an agency,” we observed, “lacks a foundation in historical practice and clashes with constitutional structure by concentrating power in a unilateral actor insulated from Presidential control.”

A straightforward application of our reasoning in Seila Law dictates the result here. The FHFA (like the CFPB) is an agency led by a single Director, and the Recovery Act (like the Dodd-Frank Act) restricts the President’s removal power. Fulfilling his obligation to defend the constitutionality of the Recovery Act’s removal restriction, amicus attempts to distinguish the FHFA from the CFPB. We do not find any of these distinctions sufficient to justify a different result.

The long decision goes on to list other Executive Branch agencies with similar restrictions on removing the director.

One of them is the Social Security Administration. Obviously, one can infer that the restrictions in Social Security Act section 702(a)(3) would also be regarded as an unconstitutional limit on the president’s power and a violation of the separation of powers. Thus, the president was immediately free to remove Commissioner Saul at any time, without having to establish neglect or malfeasance.

So, someone acting in brainded Biden's name fired Saul. An interesting footnote to that event is Saul’s public statement that he could not be fired and would be logging in to work on Monday. Apparently, he could conduct virtually all business remotely, either from his NY home or from a hotel suite in Washington, D.C.

On the Biden regime's orders, the IT staff at SSA stopped allowing Commissioner Saul to log in.


JPP lefties were silent, AFAIK.

 

[Diogenes]

Even though the president’s authority to fire the commissioner was now unfettered, there was no shortage of reasons given to justify Saul’s firing.

From the failing New York Times:

Democrats have sought to oust Mr. Saul from his position since the early days of Mr. Biden’s administration. Those calls grew in the wake of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that Democrats passed in March, which included $1,400 direct payments to individuals. Lawmakers have said Mr. Saul helped to delay payments to retirees by not transmitting necessary files to the Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. Saul’s agency said it did not receive funding to do that work.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, called for Mr. Saul’s resignation in February, saying Mr. Saul had sought to issue regulations meant to reduce access to Social Security disability benefits — including denying benefits to an estimated 100,000 potential recipients who do not speak English fluently.

“Social Security is the bedrock of our middle class that Americans earn and count on, and they need a Social Security commissioner who will honor that promise to seniors, survivors, and people with disabilities now and for decades to come,” Mr. Brown said on Friday. “Instead, Andrew Saul tried to systematically dismantle Social Security as we know it from within.”

A White House official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the firing publicly, said the administration believed that Mr. Saul had undermined Social Security’s disability benefits, terminated a telework policy at the agency and alienated federal employee unions over work force safety planning amid the pandemic.

Mr. Saul did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Can any JPP justice warrior produce a single post of theirs decrying this?

 

[Nordberg]

Saul was appointed by Trump. He was responsible for a severe drop in dept. morale. Biden was asked ti replace him, but he could not until a Sutpreme Court ruling made it possible. https://www.afge.org/article/afge-d...drew-saul-in-light-of-supreme-court-decision/

 

[Diogenes]

Saul was appointed by Trump. He was responsible for a severe drop in dept. morale.

So said whoever writes the union's press releases.

 

[Diogenes]

In addition to creating the office of Commissioner of Social Security, the 1994 law also created the office of principal Deputy Commissioner. That position had been held by another Trump appointee, David Black. He was asked to resign on July 9 and did so.

At the beginning of the disastrous Biden Administration, in January, the someone in the president's nominal employ directed the appointment of several lower-level staff at SSA (but clearly not selected by Commissioner Saul), including Chief of Staff Scott Frey, who had been deputy commissioner for legislation and congressional affairs during the Obama Administration, and deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy Kilolo Kijakazi, who came from the Urban Institute. Deputy commissioner Kijakazi was named acting commissioner, effective July 9. According to Federal News Network:

…The White House said Kijakazi will lead SSA on an acting basis until the search for a new commissioner and deputy commissioner is complete.

“Today, President Biden made the decision to change agency leadership and has asked me to serve as the acting commissioner,” Kijakazi, said in an email, which Federal News Network obtained. “Over the past several months, I have gained great appreciation for SSA and I have witnessed the commitment you bring to public service each day.

No JPP lefty objected to any of this at the time, apparently.