A federal appeals court cleared the way for President Donald Trump to fire Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, on Wednesday.

Dellinger, appointed to the role by former President Joe Biden, sued the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., federal court after his Feb. 7 firing.

D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had argued in a filing last month that Dellinger’s firing was ‘unlawful.’

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the Trump administration in a Wednesday ruling, however. Dellinger is likely to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Jackson claimed that the court ‘finds that the elimination of the restrictions on plaintiff’s removal would be fatal to the defining and essential feature of the Office of Special Counsel as it was conceived by Congress and signed into law by the President: its independence. The Court concludes that they must stand.’

Dellinger has maintained the argument that, by law, he can only be dismissed from his position for job performance problems, which were not cited in an email dismissing him from his post.

Earlier in February, liberal Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to outright deny the administration’s request to approve the firing.

Conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented, saying the lower court overstepped. They also cast doubt on whether courts have the authority to restore to office someone the president has fired. While acknowledging that some officials appointed by the president have contested their removal, Gorsuch wrote in his opinion that ‘those officials have generally sought remedies like backpay, not injunctive relief like reinstatement.’

Multiple sources told Fox News Digital that the U.N.’s Department of Global Communications may be a target for reform and even funding cuts, since it is often at odds with the U.S. and Israel.

The calls for reform come a month after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of funding to the U.N. At the time, Trump said that the world body ‘has tremendous potential,’ but is ‘not being well run.’ 

Last week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned about cuts to U.S. spending at the U.N., stating that ‘going through with recent funding cuts will make the world less healthy, less safe, and less prosperous.’

So far, Trump has halted new funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Administration for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and withdrew the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council. On Feb. 27, the U.S. also terminated $377 million in grants with the United Nations Population Fund, which offers sexual and reproductive health services in 150 countries.

The U.N. media branch’s nearly 700 employees are tasked to ‘leverage the power of communications to tell the United Nations story to global audiences in multiple languages and platforms in order to mobilize action in support of the United Nations agenda.’

Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital that, through the Department, ‘the U.S. taxpayer pays the U.N. to hire media experts and do P.R. for the purpose of blasting anti-American and antisemitic trash around the globe.’

Asked whether funding the Department of Global Communications serves U.S. interests, a U.N. spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the Department performs media outreach, operates as a newswire, and hosts the Dag Hammarskjöld Library.  

Many of the Department of Global Communications’ personnel, the spokesperson explained, are ‘based at 59 U.N. Information Centers across the world, which communicate about the U.N. and the collective will of its Member States in local languages, closer to the people that the U.N. serves.’ 

Former member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Hugh Dugan told Fox News Digital that the need to use information centers ‘to lobby its own members on their dime in their countries speaks to the deep state to me.’ With U.S. public support for the U.N. declining, Dugan said the Department of Global Communications ‘is more than failing in its own backyard in the most consequential country for its future.’

A Pew Research Center found that 52% of Americans had a favorable perspective of the U.N. as of April 2024, down from 57% in 2023.

Fox News Digital asked Under Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming whether the Department of Global Communications is involved in oversight of communications for additional U.N. entities. 

Fleming said that her department ‘does not have oversight, but convenes regular coordination meetings with communication colleagues from across the U.N. system to discuss crisis situations and content plans.’ Fleming also confirmed that the Department of Global Communications has charge of the main United Nations’ social media account.

Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of U.N. Watch, told Fox News Digital that ‘in terms of its regular communications, whether it’s the Secretary General, or whether it’s various U.N. social media accounts, are routinely engaged in anti-American and anti-Israel, and you could say, to the extent that it’s demonizing the Jewish people, antisemitic messaging.’

U.S. Ambassador-designate to the U.N. Elise Stefanik recently tweeted that ‘the days of propping up organizations at the United Nations that run counter to our interests are long gone. We will no longer fund terrorism, antisemitism, and anti-Israel hate.’ Stefanik was speaking at the ADL’s ‘NEVER IS NOW’ summit.

Fox News Digital found multiple Tweets from the U.N. Twitter account that promote a one-sided narrative of the Israel-Gaza conflict. These included a Jan. 29 Tweet in support of the UN Relief and Works Administration for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which states that ‘Israeli legislation imposes massive restraints on UNRWA’s operations,’ but fails to note why Israel has banned UNRWA’s operations and a growing number of countries have pulled funding from the terror-tied organization.

A Dec. 27 World Health Organization Tweet retweeted by the United Nations said that a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital was part of a ‘systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza,’ but did not mention that the Israel Defense Forces entered the facility to apprehend multiple members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including the director, who stored weaponry inside the hospital, as terror groups have done repeatedly during the war.

Spokespersons from the U.S. State Department, U.S. Mission to the U.N., and the United Nations were unable to provide Fox News Digital with figures about what percentage of the Department of Global Communications’ more than $117.9 million budget is covered by the U.S.

In 2022, the U.S.’s $18.1 billion contribution to the U.N. covered 30% of the organization’s total budget. By 2024, U.S. contributions to the U.N. were at 22% for the general budget and 27% for the peacekeeping budget. The U.N. reports that more than 40% of humanitarian aid it donated in 2024 was provided by the U.S. 

A State Department spokesperson did not answer direct questions about whether funding the Department of Global Communications serves U.S. interests, but explained that a 90-day review period instated by a Jan. 20 executive order ‘is a measure put in place for us to align our ongoing work with the America First agenda. The results of the in-depth review will be communicated transparently.’ The spokesperson said that the State ‘Department and USAID take their role as stewards of taxpayer dollars very seriously.
 

January Littlejohn, a mother and one of President Donald Trump’s guests at his address to Congress on Tuesday night, shared a special message to the president in an interview with Fox News Digital.

During his address, Trump recognized Littlejohn and thanked her for advocating against transgender ideology, which he called a ‘form of child abuse.’

‘My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools,’ said Trump. ‘A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns, they-them pronouns actually, all without telling January.’

Trump touted his recent signing of an executive order that he said bans public schools from ‘indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology.’ 

During his address, the president urged Congress to pass a bill ‘permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.’

‘This is a big lie and our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you,’ said Trump. 

Littlejohn told Fox News Digital that she was ‘extremely grateful’ to the president but that the fight is far from over.

Regarding Trump, Littlejohn said, ‘I would just like to thank him and continue to speak truth that there are two sexes, male or female, and no matter what one does to their body, that can never change. Sex is binary.’

‘It’s really important that parents understand how destructive in nature social transition of children is,’ she said. ‘It’s the first step toward medical intervention, and it makes the child less likely to desist.’

She explained her daughter as a 13-year-old in middle school and some friends became fixated on their gender identity.

‘The school took it upon themselves to intervene and socially transition my child. And this goes way beyond name and pronouns. They sit the child down, and in our case it was behind closed doors with three adults that consisted of the school counselor, the assistant principal and a social worker I had never met, and they did an official ‘gender support plan.’’

Littlejohn said that in this session, the school staff asked her daughter what bathroom and locker rooms she wanted to use, which sex she wanted to room with during overnight trips and whether she wanted her parents to be notified or not.

‘They put the burden on her as to whether or not my parental rights would be honored by deciding she was the sole decision maker as to whether or not my husband and I would be notified of the meeting,’ she explained.

Littlejohn said that when she made inquiries about the session to the school she was told ‘they could not give me any information about that meeting’ and ‘that my daughter was now protected by a nondiscrimination law.’

Today, Littlejohn says her daughter has worked through her gender confusion. But she said the school’s actions created a ‘huge wedge between us and our daughter’ that ‘took many years to repair.’

‘If you give these children the gift of time, if you allow them to go through their natural puberty, the vast majority of these kids will resolve their distress naturally, just like my daughter did,’ she said. ‘My daughter is a shining example of that, although she still does grieve the time that she lost, years that she lost, dedicated to the lie of this ideology to become something that she could never become. So that part is really tragic.’

Despite all this, Littlejohn said she was ‘humbled and honored’ to be invited to attend the address as the president’s guest.

‘I felt the weight of not just representing my family and what we’ve been through but of all families who have been harmed by this gender identity ideology,’ she said. ‘And it’s still happening. I get phone calls weekly from parents whose children are being seduced by the false idea that they were born in the wrong body.’ 

Though she said the experience left her feeling ‘filled with such hope,’ she said, ‘executive orders alone will not change this, because this ideology has infected every institution, including our schools.’

‘There are still 21,000 school districts across our country that have these secret social transition plans. And it’s really sad … because these children, this identity crisis is being forced on them. It’s creating confusion where no previous confusion would have existed,’ she said. ‘But the bottom line is, is we have truth and reality on our side. And I’m very grateful that we are moving in the right direction.’

A resolution to reprimand Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, survived a procedural hurdle late Wednesday afternoon, teeing the measure up for a House-wide vote.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., introduced a censure resolution against the Texas Democrat earlier in the day amid widespread GOP anger at Democrats who protested President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday.

Democrats pushed for a vote to table the resolution, which would have effectively killed it. But it failed to pass, and a vote on the measure itself is expected sometime this week.

Fox News Digital was told that Newhouse had been in contact with House GOP leadership about his resolution since Trump’s speech ended last night.

There had been multiple resolutions circulating among House Republicans to censure Green for interrupting Trump’s speech, but Newhouse’s appears to be the measure with House GOP leaders’ blessing.

‘I believe it is the first one out of the gate,’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, told reporters on Wednesday morning. ‘I think [Green’s protest is] unprecedented. Certainly in the modern era. It wasn’t an excited utterance. It was a, you know, planned, prolonged protest.’

The 77-year-old Democrat was removed from Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night after repeatedly disrupting the beginning of the president’s speech.

He shouted, ‘You have no mandate,’ at Trump as he touted Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had Green removed by the U.S. Sergeant-At-Arms.

Green remained defiant when he stopped to speak with the White House press pool on the first floor of the U.S. Capitol after being thrown out of the second floor House chamber, where Trump was speaking.

‘I’m willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me. I didn’t say to anyone, don’t punish me. I’ve said I’ll accept the punishment,’ Green said, according to the White House press pool report. ‘But it’s worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.’

In addition to Newhouse’s resolution, Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, has his own measure with more than 30 House GOP co-sponsors.

The House Freedom Caucus is backing a third censure resolution being led by Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz. 

President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, spent much of his confirmation hearing Wednesday defending the president’s decision to put a 15% cap on indirect research costs dispersed by the NIH. 

Bhattacharya, a physician, Stanford professor of medicine and senior fellow at the university’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, would not explicitly say he disagreed with the cuts, or that, if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Rather, he said he would ‘follow the law,’ while also investigating the impact of the cuts and ensuring every NIH researcher doing work that advances the health outcomes of Americans has the resources necessary to do their work.

Bhattacharya also laid out a new, decentralized vision for future research at NIH that he said will be aimed at embracing dissenting ideas and transparency, while focusing on research topics that have the best chance at directly benefiting health outcomes of Americans. Bhattacharya added that he wants to rid the agency’s research portfolio of other ‘frivolous’ efforts, that he says do little to directly benefit health outcomes.

‘There’s a lot of distrust about where the money goes because the trust in the public health establishment has collapsed since the pandemic,’ Bhattacharya said. ‘I think transparency regarding indirect costs is absolutely worthwhile. It’s something that universities can fix by working together to make sure that where that money goes is made clear.’  

Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Ed Markey of Massachusetts both pressed Bhattacharya specifically about research that looks into health issues that impact minorities — an area Democrats worry could be undermined at the NIH due to Trump’s campaign against the Left’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). 

‘The health needs of minority populations in this country are a vital priority for me … I want to make sure the research that the NIH does addresses those health needs, and I don’t see anything in the president’s orders that contradicts that, in fact, quite to the contrary,’ Bhattacharya said. ‘What I’ve heard from [Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] and from the president is ‘Let’s make America Healthy,’ meaning all Americans.’

When Alsobrooks cited a project Bhattacharya worked on related to Alzheimer’s disease, which included mentoring ‘diverse’ professionals, he said that his understanding of that part of the project meant mentoring researchers with a diverse set of ideas, not a diverse set of skin colors. 

‘I think fundamentally what matters is: Do scientists have an idea that advances the scientific field they’re in?’ Bhattacharya replied. ‘Do they have an idea that ends up addressing the health needs of Americans?’

Bhattacharya acknowledged that ‘identifying’ health disparities among minority groups is important, but emphasized the need for research that drives meaningful outcomes.

Bhattacharya also challenged the premise of a similar line of questioning from Markey, who argued Trump was utilizing ideological flashpoints to ‘slow’ life-saving research.

‘I don’t agree with you, senator, that President Trump is opposed to [speeding up research]. In fact, quite the opposite, he is quite in favor of making America healthy,’ Bhattacharya told Markey. ‘I don’t believe that ideology ought to determine whether one gets research or not.’

In addition to addressing numerous questions from Democrats about Trump’s funding cuts, Bhattacharya also outlined his plans to reform the NIH’s research portfolio during his Wednesday confirmation hearing.

Trump’s NIH nominee said he hopes to focus on cutting-edge research and other ‘big ideas’ as opposed to continuing to put all the federal government’s money into research that doesn’t involve the same ambitious goals. He also briefly spoke about improving the frequency of ‘validation research’ and increasing the number of NIH applications funded for younger investigators.

Concerns from Republicans during the hearing included whether Bhattacharya would continue supporting research investigating the link between vaccines and autism, something Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said has been proven over and over again to have no link, and whether he will permit the continued use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH-funded research.

Bhattacharya agreed with Cassidy that the linkage between autism and vaccines is clear — there isn’t one. However, he acknowledged that others may disagree with him. In line with his commitment to embracing dissenting ideas and promoting free speech in medical research, he suggested that commissioning studies could help the public gain a clearer understanding that no link exists.

On the issue of halting the use of aborted fetal tissue, during Trump’s first term, he banned its use, and Bhattacharya said he would follow the president’s lead on the issue.

House Republicans are hoping to affirm that they are on the same page as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night.

Musk is huddling with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other members of the House GOP Conference around 7 p.m. ET on Capitol Hill, according to an invitation obtained by Fox News Digital.

‘Specifics, you know, on what DOGE has been doing, and how they’ve accomplished it. And then moving forward, how will that look like?’ Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital when asked what he hoped to get out of the meeting. ‘I think the more they can articulate to the members of the House, we can do a better job delivering the message of what DOGE and President Trump are up to on that front.’

Fitzgerald added that he anticipated some ‘tough questions about the specifics’ of how much DOGE is saving.

Musk has descended on Capitol Hill at a time when his work with the federal government is drawing somewhat mixed reviews from Republican lawmakers.

The vast majority of Republicans are backing Musk’s DOGE effort, and virtually all have agreed on the need to cut wasteful government spending.

‘He’s found a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse. He thinks it’ll be upwards of $1 trillion next year,’ House GOP Policy Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., the No. 5 House GOP leader, told Fox News Digital. ‘He’s going to talk to all of us as members, and answer any questions, talk about it.’

But some GOP lawmakers have been frustrated at feeling like they’ve been left out of the loop on White House and DOGE activities. Meanwhile, several Republicans have had to contend with particularly aggressive anti-DOGE protests in their home districts.

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., a leading pragmatic Republican, said she wanted to ‘better understand what his strategy is.’

Bice commended Musk’s efforts to enact change but acknowledged concerns about the mass layoffs of federal workers across the country.

‘What the American people want to see is change. And I think that Elon is taking a hammer to agencies and then building them back in a way that is more efficient and more functional and less bureaucratic,’ Bice said.

‘But I want to know kind of what that looks like moving forward. I know there’s apprehension for people that may be in that probationary one-year period of having a federal job. We’ve already seen some layoffs, but we’re $36 trillion in debt, and we can’t continue doing the same things over.’

Freshman Rep. Derek Schmidt, R-Kan., said he hoped for a productive dialogue.

‘I think that it’s important that Mr. Musk remind folks of why he is doing what he’s doing. It’s part of the president’s agenda that the American people voted for in November, getting a more accountable… more modernized government,’ Schmidt told Fox News Digital.

‘I think it’s also important [that] communication flow the other way, and that any particular concerns that have a solid basis be relayed back so they can decide to make some adjustments.’

Musk met with Senate Republicans on Wednesday afternoon just before his huddle with the House GOP.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended U.S. efforts to negotiate with Hamas to release American hostages during a briefing on Wednesday.

There are currently five hostages with U.S. citizenship in Gaza, though most are feared dead. 

During the news conference, Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Leavitt how the plans to negotiate fall in line with the long-standing policy not to negotiate with terrorists.

‘If the U.S. has a long-standing policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists, then why is the U.S. now negotiating directly and for the first time ever with Hamas?’ Doocy asked.

‘Well, when it comes to the negotiations that you’re referring to, first of all, the special envoy who’s engaged in these negotiations does have the authority to talk to anyone,’ Leavitt responded.

She added that Israel was ‘consulted on this matter,’ and that President Donald Trump believes in putting forth ‘good faith effort[s] to do what’s right for the American people.’

‘Is it just about the hostages, or are they also talking about the president’s plan to take over?’ Doocy asked.

‘These are ongoing talks and discussions. I’m not going to detail them here,’ Leavitt said. ‘There are American lives at stake. I would refer you to the Department of State, for further details, but I’m not going to get into those talks here at this point.’

In response to Leavitt’s statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement reading: ‘In talks with the United States, Israel expressed its view on direct talks with Hamas.’

The latest comments come as the next stage of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears uncertain.  The White House has signaled support for the Israeli government’s criticism of Hamas officials, including recently backing the decision to block aid to Gaza until Hamas leaders agree to a ceasefire extension. 

In a statement obtained by Fox News on Sunday, National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said Israel has ‘negotiated in good faith since the beginning of this administration to ensure the release of hostages held captive by Hamas terrorists.’

‘We will support their decision on next steps given Hamas has indicated it’s no longer interested in a negotiated ceasefire,’ Hughes added.

Fox News’ Yonat Friling contributed to this report.