Two high-stakes Supreme Court battles over President Donald Trump’s authority to remove federal officials could reshape the balance of power in Washington, but legal experts say the justices may draw a sharp line between the cases.
At the center of the debate are Slaughter v. Trump, involving the firing of Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, and Trump v. Cook, involving Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. While both cases touch on presidential removal power, legal scholars say the disputes present fundamentally different legal questions.
In Slaughter, the administration is directly challenging statutory restrictions on the president’s ability to remove FTC commissioners, arguing that limits on the president’s authority to fire commissioners violate his Article II executive powers. But in Cook, the central question is whether Trump met the Federal Reserve Act’s “for cause” removal requirement. Trump has argued that Cook’s alleged misconduct involving mortgage disclosure documents justified her removal for cause.
Catholic University of America law professor Joel Alicea said Solicitor General John Sauer’s approach during oral arguments in Slaughter differed significantly from his strategy in Cook. The Trump administration argued in Slaughter that the FTC Act’s removal limit â which allows the president to fire commissioners only for reasons such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or misconduct â unconstitutionally restricts the president’s Article II authority.
“In the Slaughter case, they are making the explicit constitutional argument that it doesn’t matter what the statute says, the president gets to fire the FTC commissioners at will,” Alicea said.
The administration was far more cautious in Trump v. Cook.
“The president’s team chose not to raise the constitutional argument in Cook,” Alicea explained, suggesting the Court has already indicated that the Federal Reserve presents a distinct set of constitutional issues rooted in historical precedents involving the nation’s early banking system.
In its recent emergency ruling in Trump v. Wilcox, the Supreme Court allowed removals involving NLRB and Merit Systems Protection Board officials to take effect while the litigation continued.Â
But the Court rejected the argument that its decision would necessarily call into question the Federal Reserve Board’s tenure protections, stating, “we disagree,” and explaining that the Federal Reserve is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” with a distinct historical tradition dating back to the First and Second Banks of the United States.
Many legal experts, including Erin Hawley, chair of Lex Politica’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice, expect the Court to be more receptive to the administration’s argument in Slaughter than in Cook, where the Fed’s longstanding independence may weigh heavily.
“The Supreme Court has signaled that it believes the core function of the Fed â setting monetary policy â be unique in that it has a historical analogue in the First Bank,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “Based on history, that core function may well satisfy constitutional separation of powers.”
While Hawley noted that the Federal Reserve also engages in rulemaking and other activities that could be characterized as exercises of executive power, the Court is not being asked in Trump v. Cook to decide the broad constitutional validity of the Fed’s removal protections in the same way it is being asked to evaluate the FTC’s protections in Slaughter.
The Cook dispute has also drawn opposition from a bipartisan group of former Federal Reserve chairs, former Treasury secretaries and economists, who warned that allowing presidents greater control over Federal Reserve governors could undermine central-bank independence and create economic instability.Â
“There is broad consensus among economists, based on decades of macroeconomic resear
