A federal appeals court issued a temporary block Tuesday on a lower decision that found President Trump illegally fired two members of the Federal Trade Commission.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the administrative stay — a brief reprieve to give itself time to ponder the arguments more fully.
The case involves Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, whom the president booted over policy differences. They sued to regain their posts.
Now the case is shaping up as a major fight over Mr. Trump’s firing powers, directly challenging a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent where the justices rebuffed President Roosevelt’s attempt to fire an FTC member in 1935.
At that time, the high court said the FTC was an independent agency created by Congress that didn’t wield enough executive power to give the president firing powers.
But a growing chorus of conservative voices argues that case, known as Humphrey’s Executor, was wrongly decided and presidents must have broader firing powers to run the Executive Branch.
Indeed, the Supreme Court has recently allowed firings of members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board to go into effect even though lower judges said the firings ran afoul of Humphrey’s Executor.
In its brief order Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit said it was not yet reaching any of those big issues.
Also Tuesday, a federal district judge issued an order reinstating two members of the National Credit Union Administration whom Mr. Trump fired.
Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, ruled that Congress wrote the law to shield the NCUA from presidential interference, just as it has done with the Federal Reserve. That puts the agency beyond the president’s firing powers.
“The court accordingly holds that Congress’s for-cause removal restrictions for NCUA board members do not pose any constitutional problem. And because the government does not dispute that the plaintiffs were terminated without cause, those removals were unlawful,” the judge wrote.
In the FTC case, District Judge Loren AliKhan, a Biden appointee, ruled last week that until Humphrey’s Executor is overturned, Mr. Trump’s action is “blatantly unlawful.”
“Because the law on the removal of FTC commissioners is clear, and for the reasons explained below, the court will grant Ms. Slaughter’s motion for summary judgment,” the judge wrote.
The Justice Department, in appealing the case to the circuit court — one level below the high court — said that because the Supreme Court has allowed the NLRB and MSPB firings to take effect, there’s no reason Judge AliKhan shouldn’t have done the same thing with the FTC.
“The court’s reinstatement of a principal officer of the United States — in defiance of recent Supreme Court precedent staying similar reinstatements in other cases — works a grave harm to the separation of powers and the president’s ability to exercise his authority under the Constitution,” said Daniel Aguilar, the government lawyer leading the case.
