Donald Trump’s recent turn as host of the Kennedy Center Honors, a first for any president, was the culmination of his purge, earlier this year, of half the center’s bipartisan board. Like other bodies shaped in his image since his return to power, Trump packed it with Republicans and other loyalists who then, inevitably, named him chairman of the board.
This extreme makeover is but one data point in Trump’s systematic unraveling of Washington, which has had to endure everything from military deployments and the dismantlement of decades-old programs and institutions to even the armed, hostile takeover of the US Institute of Peace. All this, in addition to the mass firing sprees throughout the federal government, has come to define Trump’s second presidency.
A linchpin of this smash-and-grab is the belief that, under Article II of the Constitution, the president can fire anyone he’d like—with little consequence or pushback from civic society or the courts. Since his first day back in office, Trump has acted as though Article II makes him the manager of the federal workforce; through it all, the firings up and down the chain haven’t stopped. The casualties, which are too many to name, include: the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden; Maurene Comey, who says the Justice Department fired her for no other reason than she’s the daughter of former FBI director James Comey; almost all the Democratic appointees on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other bipartisan agencies; more than a dozen inspectors general; the chair of the Federal Election Commission; and scores of career, apolitical public servants across the federal government in just about all 50 states, which includes the dismissals of thousands earlier this year in a wave of terminations that has come to be known as the Valentine’s Day massacres.
Against this backdrop, the Supreme Court on Monday heard Trump v. Slaughter, a case that on paper will seal the future of the Federal Trade Commission—but in reality, the dispute is about whether the Constitution truly empowers the president to fire, without restriction, anyone who works in the Executive branch.
Among them is Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause earlier this year, in violation of a statute that requires a finding of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” A federal judge, bound by law and longstanding precedent, reinstated her—only to be blocked by a Supreme Court that then took up the case and agreed to settle the question for good. To this day, Slaughter remains fired.
Cristian Farias
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