Supreme Court lets Trump fire FTC official as it weighs president's power over agencies

"He may now remove - so says the majority, though Congress said differently - any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all. And he may thereby extinguish the agencies' bipartisanship and independence,"

"Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars. Still more, it should not be used, as it has also been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation's separation of powers."

The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay without explaining the conservative majority's reasoning, and three liberal justices registered their opposition. Oral arguments are scheduled for December on Humphrey's Executor, a 1935 precedent that limits presidential removal of independent agency heads to "for cause" reasons. The conservative stays have been characterized as granting the president broader unilateral removal authority, potentially allowing removal "for any reason or no reason at all" and endangering agency bipartisanship and independence. The emergency docket use raised concerns about transferring authority from Congress to the President. A related case questions removal of a Federal Reserve governor, with the Court noting the Fed's distinct structure may warrant different protections.

Read at Axios