U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Thursday denied the Trump administration’s bid to delay the reinstatement of Cathy Harris as chairwoman of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), pending an appeal.

That now-rejected motion was submitted by the Trump administration on Feb. 20, alongside its appeal of Contreras’s temporary restraining order demanding Harris’s reinstatement.

“This relief constitutes an extraordinary intrusion into the president’s authority,” government attorneys argued in their motion.

Along with temporarily restoring Harris to her position, Contreras’s order prohibits government officials from “treating her as having been removed,” blocking her access to the office’s resources, and recognizing any other person as a member of the MSPB in her position.

Contreras said in his ruling that he found Harris likely to be able to prove her termination was unlawful, allowing her the opportunity to file for a preliminary injunction by Feb. 24, with a hearing slated for March 3.

Harris’s counsel had argued that she could only be terminated from her position before the end of her term “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” and said she was not given a reason for her termination.

The judge, in his denial of the motion, reiterated his belief that Harris’s case was more likely to show success on merit, showing that her termination was unlawful and that it would deliver harm. He added that the stay on the order would cause additional injury, and said the government had not established that irreparable harm would come from returning her to her position.

They argued that the MSPB was independent of the executive branch, even though it handles executive-branch employment disputes.

The judge also agreed with their claim that Harris would face irreparable harm from her termination.

Government attorneys argue in the new filing that President Donald Trump did have the ability to fire MSPB members at will due to the significant executive power the agency wields and that Harris’s attorneys fell short of making a strong enough showing that she would succeed on merits in her position.

“The president is being prevented from installing an agency head of the president’s choosing to implement his agenda, and the president must instead retain an agency head against his will,” the filing states.

“That sort of harm—to the Executive Branch, to the separation of powers, and to our democratic system—is transparently irreparable.”

The defendants also argued that loss of employment and salary do not ordinarily amount to irreparable harm and that back pay awarded at the end of the case has been the traditional remedy.

“To the extent [the] plaintiff asserts irreparable harm to the functioning of the MSPB itself, that assertion is misplaced, because the MSPB can continue to function without plaintiff,” the filing states.

Harris was appointed to her position by President Joe Biden in 2022.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.