The tug-of-war over the leadership of the U.S. Copyright Office took a dramatic turn this week when a federal appeals court in Washington ordered Shira Perlmutter back into her post—at least for now.
In a split 2-1 ruling, the D.C. Circuit said President Donald Trump’s decision to oust Perlmutter looked unlawful on its face. The judges reinstated her while her legal challenge plays out, stressing the “extraordinary” circumstances surrounding the case.
Perlmutter was abruptly dismissed by email in May, just one day after her office issued a report warning that tech companies’ use of copyrighted works to fuel artificial intelligence systems could run afoul of the law. Soon after, Trump publicly dismissed the report’s findings, and Perlmutter argued her firing was part of a broader push to bring the office under political control.
Her lawsuit landed in front of U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who initially declined to halt the firing, saying Perlmutter hadn’t shown she would face irreparable harm. The appeals court took a sharper view, with Judge Florence Pan writing that the administration’s direct interference with Perlmutter’s congressional advisory role looked like a separation-of-powers violation “different in kind and degree” from prior disputes.
The Copyright Office, part of the Library of Congress, was intentionally insulated from presidential influence decades ago. That firewall, Perlmutter and her supporters argue, is now being tested in ways never seen before.
The White House has yet to respond to the court’s rebuke, but Perlmutter’s camp is calling the ruling a win for institutional independence. Whether temporary or lasting, her reinstatement marks a rare moment where a president’s power to remove officials has been clipped—at least until the next round in court.
