Throughout this week, the Washington Examiner’s Restoring America project will feature its latest series titled “Reforming the Deep State: Reining in the Federal Bureaucracy.” We invited some of the best policy minds in the conservative movement to speak to the issues of what waste, fraud, abuse, and unaccountability exist throughout the federal government and what still needs to be done. To read more from this series, click here.

A major legal and political battle is unfolding that will decide if President Donald Trump has the power to fire key officials whom he believes are obstructing his agenda.

Recommended Stories

• Congress must curtail the secret lawmaking of the administrative state
• Linda McMahon shows how to take on the deep state
• Charlie Kirk understood conservatives need to take back academia

Trump is facing a lawsuit brought by Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat who was appointed by President Joe Biden to the Federal Trade Commission. She argues that Trump does not have the right to remove her. 

The case, Slaughter v. Trump, is quickly becoming a high-stakes constitutional showdown over whether the president of the United States has the authority to fire confirmed presidential nominees. 

At the heart of the dispute is a nearly century-old Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor. That case originally protected so-called “independent” agencies such as the FTC from presidential control, limiting the president’s power to remove their leaders. 

The flaw in her case is that these agencies have changed a lot since 1935.

For example, the FTC now has broad powers to open investigations, issue subpoenas, file lawsuits, and impose fines. That means it’s no longer just an “independent” watchdog. It also wields significant government power and is thus deserving of more oversight from the president. 

In late July, the Supreme Court recognized the president’s constitutional right to remove executive officers exercising significant authority by temporarily allowing Trump to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In Seila Law v. CFPB (2020), the high court also affirmed the president’s right to remove Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officials at will. 

It should rule the same for FTC and DOJ officials.

The sad reality is that, during the Biden administration, departments and agencies such as the FTC and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division often pursue anti-capitalist political agendas rather than merely enforce the consumer protection rules on the books. 

For example, the Biden Justice Department’s lawsuit against Visa’s debit card business wrongly targeted a company for being the most successful business in a highly competitive market, acting as if holding 60% market share is some form of crime. The Biden DOJ also prevented low-cost airlines Spirit and JetBlue from merging, which forced Spirit to declare bankruptcy, a huge win for the Big Four airlines that dominate the industry and compete with JetBlue and Spirit. 

Such cases weren’t about enforcing the law. They were about advancing an anticapitalist ideology and chilling innovation and American business growth. Why shouldn’t the president be able to act to hold the leaders of these agencies accountable and ensure they remain on mission? After all, the Constitution vests all executive power in the president, not in lifetime bureaucrats or independent commissions. 

Some critics call removing confirmed agency or department heads politicizing law enforcement, but enforcement has always been political. The real question is who should control it — elected officials accountable to voters, or unelected bureaucrats who have every incentive to pursue their own agendas.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE “REFORMING THE DEEP STATE SERIES”

So no, when Trump fires officials who refuse to carry out his agenda, he isn’t being power-hungry. He is reasserting the constitutional authority necessary to keep Washington accountable. For too long, bureaucrats have operated as a government within a government, making policy with no accountability. Trump is making clear there is only one boss in the executive branch — the president.

If unelected regulators think they are above the president and the law, they don’t belong in government. It’s that simple.

Thomas Stratmann is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and professor of economics and law at George Mason University.