This week the Supreme Court contradicted itself in such glaring terms that a conservative justice admitted it could not be legally justified.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the republican majority ruled that Trump can fire federal agency commissioners and directors without cause, despite statutory language requiring cause, and despite Supreme Court precedent dating back to 1935 protecting for-cause only removal. Thanks to Slaughter, Trump can now fire any director for revenge, for political purposes, or for no reason at all. Any federal regulator who rules against Trump’s corporate donors will now be on the chopping block.
But the Court contradicted this holding in Trump v. Cook. In Cook, the majority prevented Trump from firing Lisa Cook, a Governor of the Federal Reserve, pending the outcome of an underlying case on whether there was proper cause for her removal. In the underlying case, Bill Pulte, Trump’s partisan henchman, presented Trump with unproven allegations of mortgage fraud against Cook, which Trump then used to fire her.
The contradiction between the two decisions is unsettling. Under Slaughter, no cause is necessary before Trump can fire directors of dozens of federal agencies who, until now, were expected to perform their statutory duties free of political interference. But under Cook, Trump cannot remove directors without cause, but only for the Federal Reserve.
These rulings contradict each other to elevate corporate interests over human interests
The contradiction is obvious, and there’s no legal justification to explain it away. Justice Coney Barrett, after she ruled that Trump can fire agency directors just for fun in Slaughter, dissented in Cook and admitted the gross contradiction between the two decisions. “How can history support both a categorical rule and a carve-out?,” she wrote. How, indeed? Coney Barrett’s observation proves that one of these momentous decisions is in error, and anyone familiar with Trump’s dangerous incompetence and thirst for revenge knows which one.
Chief Justice Roberts crafted a “unique historical and statutory exception” for the central bank to justify the Fed carve out in Cook, reasoning that the Fed exercises monetary policy rather than ‘generalized’ executive power, which justifies protecting its independence from the President in order to “prevent severe financial panics.” But Roberts could have and should have applied the same justification to protect the quasi-independence of other federal agencies as well. Letting Trump trash, politicize and privatize them will have consequences even more disastrous than “severe financial panic.”
For example, the EPA relies on scientific expertise to enforce corporate regulations that protect clean air, soil, and water, through statutory boards and federal advisory committees. These boards provide independent scientific peer review, oversight, and policy recommendations based on scientific expertise and evidence. Under Slaughter, Trump can fire them if they offend his corporate donors by enforcing or recommending regulations they don’t like. The air we breathe and the water we drink are now subject to Trump’s know-nothing whims and the protection of his corporate donors, the very ones doing the polluting. In the court’s majority view from these two cases, financial markets cannot be subordinated to politics, but human survival can.
Roberts understands the rub
Allowing Trump to fire a Fed Governor without cause, Roberts wrote in Cook, would contradict “the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.” But that is exactly what he did in Slaughter: he erased Congressional mandates that require cause for directors’ removal, and dismissed the nation’s 91 year precedent, history and tradition of upholding agencies’ protection from political interference.
In Cook, protecting fed governors with only-for-cause removal is necessary, Roberts wrote, because “Without such constraints in place, any perceived or alleged misstep (past or present) could provide a ready pretext for a Governor’s removal — a fact that he would surely know, and that would surely weigh on him as he decided what to say and how to vote. Nothing could be more corrosive of the independence that Congress sought to preserve.” Robert’s exact words and rationale apply to all directors, not just fed governors, suggesting the court’s true goal is the elimination of a functioning federal government.
Roberts knew his ruling in Slaughter would erode the functionality of all federal agencies Congress created, which appears to have been the majority’s purpose.
The court is elevating corporate interests over all else
Roberts is right to worry that Trump firing fed governors at whim would affect financial markets. If a President can fire the Federal Reserve without cause, financial analysts say it would permanently dismantle central bank independence, trigger immediate turmoil in global financial markets, and lead to higher long-term inflation and borrowing costs. It would also trigger long-term structural damage including a bond market sell-off and weakening of the U.S. dollar, which could instantly cause between $880 billion and $1.5 trillion loss in value from the stock market.
The Supreme Court decided in Cook that that financial risk was too high, and they were correct. But they decided in Slaughter that the risk of letting toxic particles infiltrate the human body, killing over nine million Americans a year with lung, liver, and brain cancer, are acceptable. Trump can now fire regulators who even hint at enforcing environmental, health, and safety regulations against his corporate donors, and he will do so with relish and absolution.
Cook and Slaughter are contradictory rulings, but both cases prove that this court will protect corporate profits above all else. They also prove that the country will not survive under the current composition of the Supreme Court.
Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.