Conservative Project at Supreme Court Meets Trump's Push to Oust Officials

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News Analysis

Conservative Project at Supreme Court Meets Trump’s Push to Oust Officials

President Trump has repeatedly ousted leaders of independent agencies despite federal laws meant to shield those regulators from politics.


Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and other conservatives on the Supreme Court have embraced the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the Constitution vests all executive power in the president and that he must be able to control everything the executive branch does. Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Ann E. Marimow
Reporting from Washington
Dec. 7, 2025
Updated 11:56 a.m. ET

As a young staff member in the Reagan administration, John G. Roberts Jr. was part of a group of lawyers who pushed for more White House control over independent government agencies. ... The “time may be ripe to reconsider the existence of such entities, and take action to bring them back within the executive branch,” the future chief justice of the United States advised the White House counsel in a 1983 memo. Independent agencies, he wrote, were a “Constitutional anomaly.”

Once he ascended to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts joined other conservatives on the bench in a series of rulings that have chipped away at Congress’s power to constrain the president’s authority to fire independent regulators. ... That decades-long project of the conservative legal movement collides on Monday, when the case is argued in the court. At stake is President Trump’s desire to oust officials across the government, in defiance of federal laws meant to protect their jobs and shield them from politics.

The result, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions suggest, is that the majority will likely side with Mr. Trump in a move that could significantly shift power from Congress to the president and usher in a dramatic change in the way the federal government is structured. ... “This is not a bolt out of the blue,” said Deepak Gupta, a lawyer representing an agency official in a separate case who was also fired by the president.

“There is a tendency to see this as merely part of a recent short-term drama about President Trump, but really a majority of the justices have long been sympathetic to the argument that the Trump administration is making here — and that’s a view that transcends this presidency,” he said. ... Monday’s case specifically tests whether President Trump can fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, simply because he says she does not align with his agenda — despite a law that says the president can only remove commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”


Rebecca Slaughter at her home in Maryland last week. Ms. Slaughter, a Democrat, was first nominated to the Federal Trade Commission by President Trump in 2018, renominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2023 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to a term that expires in 2029. Moriah Ratner for The New York Times

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Kirsten Noyes contributed research and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.

A correction was made on Dec. 7, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a group backing the Trump administration’s position on tenure protections for independent agency leaders. It is the New Civil Liberties Alliance, not the New Civil Liberties Union.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [e-mail] more

Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington.

As lare as September, Ann Marimow was writing for the Washington Post.

Ann E. Marimow

Robert Barnes retired, so I don't know who is covering the Supreme Court for the Post.

Edited to add: The answer: Justin Jouvenal