President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is seeking to overturn a landmark Supreme Court case in an effort to give the president greater control over independent three-letter agencies.
In a move that could allow Trump to more easily fire officials who refuse to implement his policies, the acting U.S. solicitor general sent Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin a letter on Wednesday, notifying him of the Justice Department’s plans to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a key precedent that limits the president’s power to remove independent agency members.
The letter, penned by Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris, says the DOJ has determined “that certain for-cause removal provisions” that apply to certain administrative agency members are unconstitutional, and the department would “no longer defend their constitutionality.”
TRUMP’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ORDER TO DROP CHARGES AGAINST NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS SPARKS RESIGNATIONS
Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the case in question, is a 1935 Supreme Court case that narrowed the president’s constitutional power to remove agents of the executive branch.
Earlier this month, a former NLRB member sued President Donald Trump over her termination, arguing that federal law protects her from being arbitrarily dismissed. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Harris cited a previous case, Myers v. United States, which held that the Constitution granted the president sole power to remove executive branch officials.
“The exception recognized in Humphrey’s Executor thus does not fit the principal officers who head the regulatory commissions noted above,” Harris wrote in the letter.
“To the extent that Humphrey’s Executor requires otherwise, the Department intends to urge the Supreme Court to overrule that decision, which prevents the President from adequately supervising principal officers in the Executive Branch who execute the laws on the President’s behalf, and which has already been severely eroded by recent Supreme Court decisions,”…
