Syndicated talk-show host-turned-podcaster Michael Savage told Newsmax on Friday that he plans to sue the federal government next week to prevent his removal from a trustee board that oversees the Presidio, the onetime military base in San Francisco that has become a national park.
“This is based solely on political differences, as you said, rather than job performance or alleged acts of malfeasance,” said Savage, also known as Michael Wiener, as he spoke about the action to remove him. “And I will take it to the federal courts on Monday because they bullied me by sending me a message saying ‘Resign or we fire you.’
“Well, I sent the note saying I’m not resigning because the only way to replace someone on this board is if they resigned.”
He continued, “The fact is that the president may not remove any appointee to an independent regulatory agency, except for reasons that Congress has provided by law, and there are no reasons we looked up.”
Savage, who the Biden administration on Thursday demanded resign by the end of the day, said he would seek an injunction Monday in federal court based on the 1930s case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, in which an appointee of Herbert Hoover successfully challenged a removal from the Federal Trade Commission by then-President Franklin Roosevelt.
“Roosevelt fired somebody because he wouldn’t resign,” Savage said. “And so the guy took it to the Supreme Court and won. Roosevelt was very angry. And it was all politics.”
Savage, one of three Trump appointees to the Presidio Trust, says he was being removed because he insisted that the board expand a military museum in the 1,200-acre park, at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, and highlight Armed Forces history at the location, including through a national cemetery.
Said Savage: “Not only did they cut off my email an hour ago without telling me. And I said, ‘Who did this? It wasn’t the federal agency that said they were going to fire me. It was someone inside the trust.
“And they expunged the minutes from the last board meeting where I said I have found about $2.5 million in funding for the military exhibits. These individuals did not want the military exhibits to be expanded. They want to turn it into the Woodstock West. They want any reference to the military gone from the Presidio, which is an old Army base.”
Savage was informed of the Biden administration’s demand for his resignation via a letter from White House Office of Presidential Personnel Director Catherine Russell. His biography has been removed from the Presidio Trust’s website.
“What a great, great place this is,” Savage said referring to the Presidio. “It’s not supposed to be a hippie Woodstock. That’s nice. If you want to play golf and go to a hotel, wonderful. It’s supposed to be self-supporting. But the board was created to oversee this. To make sure it’s not developed and turned into, I don’t know, housing projects.”
