Biden fires Trump-appointed Social Security chief whose benefits and union policies infuriated Democrats

Joe Biden has fired the Donald Trump-appointed chief of the Social Security Administration, an independent agency where his role was set to expire through January 2025.

The president has named Kilolo Kijakazi, the current deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy, to serve as acting commissioner, to replace Andrew Saul. However, in an interview with The Washington Post, Mr Saul challenged the legality of administration’s move to oust him from the agency.

“I consider myself the term-protected commissioner of Social Security,” he told the newspaper, adding that he called his firing a “Friday Night Massacre”.

He said he received notice from the White House Personnel Office on 9 July.

“It was a bolt of lightning no one expected,” he told The Post. “And right now it’s left the agency in complete turmoil.”

Although the position was a holdover from the Trump administration carrying a six-year term, Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups for disabled and elderly people have urged the president to fire Mr Saul for his anti-union position and after accusations that he delayed coronavirus stimulus cheques and sought to delay disability benefits.

A White House official told Politico that Mr Saul “has undermined and politicised Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilised by up to 25 per cent of the agency’s workforce” and has not repaired the agency’s “relationships with relevant federal employee unions including in the context of Covid-19 workplace safety planning”.

He also “reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the president’s policy agenda”, according to the administration official speaking to Politico.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Democratic US Rep Bill Pascrell, who joined lawmakers pressing the president for Mr Saul’s removal.

In a letter to the White House in March, Rep Pascrell – who also chairs the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight and is a member of the Subcommittee on Social Security – accused Mr Saul and deputy commissioner David Black of a “stunning streak of disregard, callousness, and destruction of the agency”.

The White House has pointed to a recent ruling at the US Supreme Court and guidance from the US Department of Justice that authorises Mr Saul’s removal.

Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, which advocates for the programme and other federal safety nets for at-risk Americans, praised the president’s move to boot Mr Saul, who helped carry out a “despicable mission” under Mr Trump that “includes waging a war on people with disabilities, demoralising the agency’s workforce, and delaying President Biden’s stimulus cheques”.