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Trump Wants Complete Control. Will the Supreme Court Hand It to Him? - Kate Shaw @ NYT
NYT - Gift LinkOn Monday the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, a case that will decide whether to grant the president, for the first time in American history, the power to fire the heads of virtually all independent agencies at will. This would be a vast transfer of power from Congress to the president.
The Constitution doesn’t explicitly grant the president any such power, and nearly a century ago, the court unanimously rejected an argument that the president possessed it. Today’s Republican-appointed justices appear to be firmly under the sway of an atextual and ahistoric theory — the unitary executive theory — that demands complete presidential control over essentially every government agency and insists that the power to fire agency heads at will is an indispensable part of such control.
Congress has made a range of choices when it comes to creating, structuring and empowering federal agencies; some have been given a degree of independence from the president. Giving a president complete control would have a profound impact on how our government functions and the ability of these agencies to do work that touches the lives of practically every American. It could undermine, in tangible and immediate ways, agencies’ ability to safeguard consumers’ privacy, ensure the rights of workers and unions, minimize the hazards posed by ordinary household products and more.
In his brief in Slaughter, President Trump insists that the Constitution grants him, as part of his core powers, the ability to remove agency leaders at will. (In this case, he is trying to remove Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.) He further maintains that “the president’s removal power extends to heads of multimember administrative agencies” like the F.T.C.
The Constitution doesn’t explicitly grant the president any such power, and nearly a century ago, the court unanimously rejected an argument that the president possessed it. Today’s Republican-appointed justices appear to be firmly under the sway of an atextual and ahistoric theory — the unitary executive theory — that demands complete presidential control over essentially every government agency and insists that the power to fire agency heads at will is an indispensable part of such control.
Congress has made a range of choices when it comes to creating, structuring and empowering federal agencies; some have been given a degree of independence from the president. Giving a president complete control would have a profound impact on how our government functions and the ability of these agencies to do work that touches the lives of practically every American. It could undermine, in tangible and immediate ways, agencies’ ability to safeguard consumers’ privacy, ensure the rights of workers and unions, minimize the hazards posed by ordinary household products and more.
In his brief in Slaughter, President Trump insists that the Constitution grants him, as part of his core powers, the ability to remove agency leaders at will. (In this case, he is trying to remove Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.) He further maintains that “the president’s removal power extends to heads of multimember administrative agencies” like the F.T.C.
My take in this morning’s @nytimes.com on Trump v. Slaughter, on the future of independent agencies. Arguments before SCOTUS today @ 10am
— Kate Shaw (@kateshaw.bsky.social) 2025-12-08T11:33:18.390Z
Trump Wants Complete Control. Will the Supreme Court Hand It to Him? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/o...
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