The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday inadvertently revealed President Donald Trump’s likely picks for the National Labor Relations Board in an email sent to members ahead of any announcements, according to a screenshot.
“In the lead-up to the long Independence Day weekend, the White House today announced several much-anticipated appointments of two members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): Scott Mayer, Chief Labor Counsel at The Boeing Corporation, and James Murphy, a former career official with the NLRB,” the Chamber published in a message dated July 2 to its labor relations committee in an email obtained by Politico.
The email went out before any public statement from the White House, suggesting an internal misstep that preempted a formal rollout of the nominees. The White House has not yet announced Mayer or Murphy as NLRB nominees, and a source familiar with the matter confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the White House has not yet made its final selection.
The apparent leak came just hours after the Trump administration notched a legal victory that cleared the way to remove a Biden-era appointee from labor oversight boards.
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Trump can lawfully remove Susan Tsui Grundmann, a Democratic member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, despite her term running until 2027. Grundmann had sued to block her removal after the White House notified her in February that she was being dismissed. A lower court sided with her in June, but the new appeals court decision halts that ruling.
The three-judge panel cited the Supreme Court’s May decision on the president’s removal powers, which found that members of agencies such as the NLRB and Merit Systems Protection Board wield enough executive authority to be removed without cause. Trump appointed all three judges.
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TRUMP TO FIRE INDEPENDENT AGENCY HEADS
“The Supreme Court’s reasoning fully applies to the FLRA, which possesses powers substantially similar to those of the NLRB,” the panel wrote.
Grundmann, confirmed in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, had been viewed as a key ally of federal employee unions. The FLRA helps resolve disputes between the government and its workforce, a mission now in flux amid the broader personnel reshuffling under Trump’s second-term agenda.
