The president seemed poised for a big Supreme Court win letting him remove officials without cause. But the justices appeared to struggle with how to insulate the Federal Reserve from politics.
President Trump has mused about trying to fire Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, but he has not followed through. Indeed, no president has sought to remove a member of the Fed board without cause.
The president seemed poised for a big Supreme Court win letting him remove officials without cause. But the justices appeared to struggle with how to insulate the Federal Reserve from politics.
President Trump has mused about trying to fire Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, but he has not followed through. Indeed, no president has sought to remove a member of the Fed board without cause.
The justices have indicated that they will try to find a way to protect the independence of the Fed, even as they let presidents remove leaders of other agencies.
Caleb E. Nelson, a leading originalist law professor, challenged the conventional wisdom of the “unitary executive theory” in an article that was debated in the parties’ briefs ahead of Monday’s arguments.
Scores of federal laws limit the president’s ability to fire officials like members of the Federal Trade Commission and governors of the Federal Reserve Board.
As a lawyer for a conservative think tank, Ms. Bondi, now the attorney general, filed a Supreme Court brief last year saying service members who followed such orders were committing crimes.
The court’s conservative majority said that Texas’ asserted political motives justified letting the state use voting maps meant to disadvantage Democrats in the midterms.
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