Biden legal wins ends up benefitting Donald Trump’s administration

Prior to leaving office, Donald Trump rewarded some of his most loyal supporters with appointments to the board of the military academies.

When Biden took office, he immediately removed them, with Sean Spicer challenging his removal. It now looks like Trump was playing the long game, as Biden’s legal win set the stage to help Trump during this administration.

Spicer Removed

After Biden took office, he called on all of the 18 Trump appointees to resign their posts given to them by Donald Trump on their respective military academy boards. Among those were Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway.

In demanding their resignations, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated, "I will let others evaluate whether they think Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer and others were qualified or not political, to serve on these boards.

"But the president's qualification requirements are not your party registration. They are whether you're qualified to serve and whether you are aligned with the values of this administration."

That reasoning did not hold water when you consider at least two of the people Biden called to resign were retired generals.

Spicer Fights Back

After being dismissed, Spicer and Russ Vought, who also served on the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, sued the Biden administration over the removal, claiming that Biden had “no statutory authority” to remove them from the board.

Attorney Reed Rubinstein stated, “At a minimum, what the government did here is a break from longstanding practices and norms, and we believe that the district court's analysis likely was incorrect.”

Oddly enough, this was a fight that Spicer had no problem losing. He knew that if Trump were to win in 2024, Trump would be looking to remove everyone appointed by Biden. To that point, his loss would be Trump’s win.

As it turned out, Spicer did lose the case, and he could not have been more delighted.

Biden Took the Bait

In hindsight, this appeared to be a setup that Biden fell for hook, line, and sinker. Now there is a legal precedent in place to support these removals, and it is one that Trump will lean on when his removals get challenged in court.

To that point, Spicer recently commented, "The idea was to make sure that the Republican Party in the future had the legal backing to do what President Trump is doing now.”

Spicer admitted that his lawsuit was “not about getting back on the board.” He added, "This is about sending a message to make the President of the United States go to court and argue that he had the right to fire any of these people. It was America First Legal that came up with the strategy, and we were the two appointees that agreed to be the example."

I have to say, this is some pretty serious long-game work by Spicer and Trump if we are to believe this was the strategy all along. We all know how our courts work these days, however, but the fact there is a legal precedent in place will have to be considered by the courts, no matter how much they want to deny him. If those cases go to the Supreme Court, we have seen time and again where Roberts leans on precedent, so on the surface, I have to say I think Trump will win this battle.