President Trump violated the due process rights of three members of the board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances when he dismissed them without cause, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
Judge María Antongiorgi-Jordán of the Federal District Court in San Juan found that the White House failed to comply with a 2016 law that created the seven-member board.
In granting the preliminary injunction, she effectively returned the three to their posts, finding that she did not have to formally order their reinstatement because they had not been properly removed. Mr. Trump dismissed five of the board’s seven members in early August, after the right-wing agitator Laura Loomer had criticized the board’s spending.
Mr. Trump has long had a fractious relationship with Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria in 2017, his administration delayed critical aid to the island, and he mused aloud about selling it.
The board members who sued — Andrew G. Biggs, Arthur J. González and Betty A. Rosa — were each dismissed with a brief email that did not specify any cause. The White House ultimately outlined several reasons in a letter Sept. 26, nearly two months after the purge and three days before the judge held the first hearing in the case.
The letter said in part that the members were dismissed for their “inefficiency, ineffectiveness, neglect, and failure to advance the statutory mission of the Oversight Board.”
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The post Judge Says Trump Wrongly Removed Puerto Rico Oversight Board Members appeared first on New York Times.
