The Supreme Court seemed inclined to remove certain limits on President Donald Trump’s power to remove bureaucrats, but oral arguments on Dec. 8 left questions about how far their eventual decision would go in empowering the executive.
The case—Trump v. Slaughter— focused on President Donald Trump’s request to override a legislative barrier to firing members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Trump attempted to fire Rebecca Slaughter, an FTC commissioner, earlier this year without invoking any of the reasons Congress listed in the FTC Act as valid for removing commissioners such as her.
Slaughter then won multiple court battles in an attempt to stave off that termination….