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Supreme Court lets Trump fire officials, except at Fed
The court reversed a 90-year-old precedent that protected agency heads from being fired
A pair of landmark Supreme Court decisions Monday gave presidents broad authority to fire the heads of previously independent federal agencies while appearing to carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve. Both rulings were written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
In the “more significant decision,” CNN said, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority allowed President Donald Trump to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter at will “despite a federal law that requires presidents to show cause — such as malfeasance.” In the other, a 5-4 court said Trump can’t fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, for now.
Who said what
Monday’s rulings “took a sledgehammer to much of the federal government’s regulatory structure,” Nina Totenberg said at NPR, with the court’s conservatives “striking down almost all the limits that Congress — and the courts — had previously established to protect the independence” of regulatory agencies. Slaughter said the decision allowed Trump to “fire watchdogs who won’t put politics over principle” and “replace them with lap dogs.”
Cook celebrated her narrow victory as a win for the “American people, whose economic well-being depends on a central bank that answers to its mission, not political intimidation.” But the ruling gave Trump “an opening to keep fighting,” and he signaled he would, The New York Times said. The decision was “procedural,” Trump said, and he would “take appropriate action immediately.”
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The court’s massive “expansion of presidential power” could “open the door to allowing presidents to fire at will not just agency leaders, but potentially lower-level government experts who have been protected by the Civil Service Reform Act since 1883,” Totenberg said.
Sign up for The Week’s free daily newsletter, Today’s Best Articles
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
