Supreme Court Sounds Ready to Let Trump Control All Federal Agencies |
It’s not looking so good for former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—or any Democratic appointees at federal agencies.
While hearing arguments Monday in a case challenging Slaughter’s removal earlier this year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed primed to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 case that established Congress can pass laws limiting the president’s ability to fire executive officials of independent federal agencies.
The court’s six conservative justices voiced concerns that agencies wielding executive power weren’t really accountable to the executive, Bloomberg Law reported. “Tomorrow we could have the Labor Commission, the Education Commission, the Environmental Commission, rather than Departments of Interior and so forth,” warned Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The court’s liberal justices weren’t convinced. Justice Elena Kagan said allowing Slaughter’s removal would place “massive, uncontrolled, unchecked power in the hands of the president.”
Only Justice Brett Kavanaugh voiced “concerns” about handing over the Federal Reserve, which is meant to set monetary policy without political interference.
The Supreme Court previously approved Donald Trump’s emergency request to remove Slaughter, despite the rulings of two lower courts and a law stating that presidents may only legally remove FTC commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” At the time, Kagan torched her colleagues for empowering Trump to remove “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all.”
“And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence,” Kagan wrote in her opinion. Slaughter was the only Democrat left on the FTC board.
Breaking with precedent on Humphrey will allow Trump to continue his unfettered firing campaign against Democratic appointees, but it would also grant the president unprecedented control over agencies that regulate the economy, the stock market, as well as federal campaign finance and communication rules.
The Supreme Court previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
President Trump has been quite upset over six Democratic legislators telling members of the military that they have to refuse illegal orders, calling the lawmakers seditious and saying their statements are “punishable by DEATH.”
But as it turns out, Attorney General Pam Bondi has said the same thing.
Last year, as a lawyer for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, Bondi filed a brief with the Supreme Court writing, “Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.”
“The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill nonmilitary targets. Indeed, service members are required not to do so,” Bondi wrote in the brief, filed to support Trump in his effort to convince the Supreme Court to grant him immunity from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Bondi was in fact trying to cover for one of Trump’s lawyers in January 2024, who was asked by Judge Florence Y. Pan in federal appeals court, “Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”
D. John Sauer, who is now Trump’s solicitor general, said no, seeming to hurt his case. Bondi’s friend-of-the-court-brief was meant to cover for Sauer by arguing that Pan’s hypothetical question wasn’t realistic because military officers would disobey such an order.
“A president cannot order an elite military unit to kill a political rival, and the members of the military are required not to carry out such an unlawful order,” Bondi wrote in her brief. “It would be a crime to do so.”
When the case reached the Supreme Court, conservative Justice Samuel Alito agreed.
“I don’t want to slander SEAL Team 6,” Alito said to laughter in the courtroom. “Because they’re—no, seriously, they’re honorable. They’re honorable officers, and they are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice not to obey unlawful orders.”
While the president won his immunity case, the six Democrats have been targeted by Trump’s supporters with violent threats and unrelenting attacks from the White House. And Bondi is not the only administration official who has affirmed that the military should disobey illegal orders—Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is on video saying the same thing in 2016. But to this administration, Trump can’t break the law, only the people who disobey him do.
GOP Representative Brian Fitzpatrick sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday and directly criticized the recent policy decisions of President Trump and the Republican Party in general, further emphasizing the various internal rifts on the right.
The Pennsylvania representative first came for what he sees as his party’s steerless criticism of the Affordable Care Act.
“On health care, you’ve been pushing very hard to deal with these expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, pushing your own plan for this,” Raju said to Fitzpatrick. “But you’re encountering a lot of resistance from within your own party.... What do you say to them?”
“If you don’t have a better plan, then get on board with ours. But doing nothing is not an option,” the representative replied. “I’ve heard so many people in the Republican conference rail against the Affordable Care Act, rail on Obamacare, rail on the premium tax credits.... If you wanna criticize something that’s OK, as long as you have a better alternative. They have never offered a better alternative.”
GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick says Rs need more focus on affordability.
On Trump calling it a D scam: “I don't believe that to be true at all..It's real.”
On GOP railing on ACA: “They have never offered a better alternative”
On Ukraine, says Trump has been “too deferential” to Putin pic.twitter.com/KboOhZIMNQ
Fitzpatrick also stressed the affordability issue.
“Everybody’s gotta have an answer to rising costs across the board, whether it be health care or anything. This is what people voted on,” he said. “This is what led to Donald Trump’s election in ’24, I believe it’s what led to Mamdani’s election in ’25. I think affordability is the issue, that’s what trumps everything else.”
“The president himself called affordability a Democratic scam,” Raju replied.
“I don’t believe that to be true. At all.”
“Do you find those comments problematic?”
“I don’t know what he was intending, I’ve heard him say the opposite of that, that he wants to focus on affordability,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know where he’s going with that.... I can just tell you from my standpoint, affordability is the most important issue. Issue number one.”
Fitzpatrick reserved some of his harshest criticism for how Trump has handled Russia’s war on Ukraine, as the president has pushed what many have referred to as a 28-point pro-Putin peace plan.
“I have not liked the........