SC Weighs Another Step to Broaden Power of Trump

Chief Justice John Roberts has led the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on a steady march toward increasing the power of the presidency, starting well before Donald Trump’s time in the White House, Mark Sherman reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The court's conservatives have already allowed Trump, in the opening months of his second term, to fire almost everyone he has wanted.

The justices could take the next step in a case being argued Monday that calls for a unanimous 90-year-old decision limiting executive authority to be overturned.

The court’s conservatives, liberal Justice Elena Kagan noted in September, seem to be “raring to take that action.”

They have already allowed Trump, in the opening months of his second term, to fire almost everyone he has wanted, despite the court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor that prohibits presidents from removing the heads of independent agencies without cause.

The officials removed include Rebecca Slaughter, whose firing from the Federal Trade Commission is at issue in the current case, as well as officials from the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The only officials who have so far survived removal efforts are Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, and Shira Perlmutter, a copyright official with the Library of Congress.

The court has already suggested it will view the Fed differently from other independent agencies, and Trump has said he wants Cook out because of allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook says she did nothing wrong.