White House praises executive expansion from Supreme Court

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(The Center Square) — Legal counsel at the White House hailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold executive power over federal boards on Thursday.

White House counsel Will Scharf praised the high court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, a case that upheld the president’s authority to fire members of federal executive boards.

In a 6-3 decision, justices allowed Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission appointed by President Joe Biden.

“Slaughter was an immensely important case that I think corrected very, very poor and quite ancient precedent,” Scharf said at an event hosted by the Federalist Society Thursday.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court, which placed a great emphasis on executive board members' power being vested within the authority of the president.

“These officers were to serve as envoys of the President, not his equals. They ‘ought to be considered as the assistants or deputies of the Chief Magistrate,’” Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

Solicitor General John Sauer, who argued the case for the Trump administration, also praised the decision.

“It’s hard to overstate the importance of Slaughter,” Sauer said. “Slaughter is an enormous historic decision. It matters for the structure of our government and it matters for the preservation of our liberties going forward.”

Scharf praised the high court’s wording of the decision. He said Roberts did a “masterful” job in establishing the theory of a unitary executive branch.

“I was proud that we, as the White House and obviously the Department of Justice, got to play a role in correcting that historic constitutional wrong,” Scharf said.

The court’s decision overturned a more than 90-year-old precedent created by Humphreys v. United States, a case where the Supreme Court prevented President Franklin D. Roosevelt from firing a member of the FTC. Roberts, in his opinion, said the decision has not “withstood the test of time.”

However, justices on the court were not united in their ruling on Slaughter. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said Congress was meant to control agencies like the FTC and other executive boards.

"The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws," Sotomayor wrote in the court’s dissenting opinion.

Scharf admitted the case came at a time when the White House has moved at a rapid pace under Trump.

“We have a very energetic executive in President Trump now,” Scharf said. “We want energy in the executive, always.”

Justices on the high court also did not endorse a sweeping theory of executive power. In Trump v. Cook, the justices rejected presidential authority to fire members of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors.

Roberts said the Federal Reserve exists as an agency with long-standing authority apart from the president, which prevents members from being fired.

In October, the president announced the creation of a committee to investigate Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. Trump previously said she committed mortgage fraud, a claim Cook has repeatedly denied.

Any further effort to fire Cook could return the justices if legal questions are raised.

“As president, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” Trump wrote on social media in October.