SCOTUS Upholds President’s Power

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court backed President Donald Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, overturning a 91-year precedent.

• The 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States established that Congress had the authority to block the president from firing leaders of regulatory agencies.
• In the 6-3 Trump v. Slaughter decision, the court held that such protections for executive-branch officers violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote in her dissent that the ruling “reshapes our government” and “shifts tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the president’s hands.”

Yet the constitutional rationale behind the ruling is simple.

• The U.S. Constitution divides power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Regulatory agencies must come under one of these three branches.
• The Federal Trade Commission is part of the executive branch, so its employees come under the authority of the president, as he is the only person in the executive branch of government elected by the American people.
• In fact, the presidency and the vice presidency are the only executive offices even mentioned in the Constitution, except for the statement that the president “shall commission all the officers of the United States.”

“In its present form, the ftc enforces and administers some 80 statutes, which cover almost every facet of our nation’s economy,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “The tasks it undertakes are ‘the very essence of execution of the law’—precisely the president’s constitutional role.” He added, “Subordinates who exercise the president’s power are subject to removal by him.”

In a separate case decided yesterday, Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court refused to overturn a lower court decision blocking President Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Since the Federal Reserve is not actually part of the executive branch but an independent bank directly accountable to Congress, the president cannot fire Federal Reserve governors in the same way he can fire bureaucrats and executive agents.

In a third case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the liberal justices in ruling that Mississippi’s law allowing absentee ballots to be counted if received up to five days after Election Day.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch pointed out in their dissent that counting ballots received after Election Day effectively postpones the date on which that collective choice is finalized, violating the federal requirement that elections be held on a specific uniform day.

In “Is America’s Supreme Court in Bible Prophecy?” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry highlighted a prophecy in Amos 7:13 about the “king’s court,” which would be better translated as “kingdom’s court.” He explained why he believes this refers to the U.S. Supreme Court and how this indicates that, though it is not personally loyal to America’s end-time Jeroboam (President Trump), it does favor his fight against lawlessness.

The current Supreme Court doesn’t always make the right decision, but overall it is helping President Trump rein in the “deep state.”