The Department of Justice says the president has the power to fire all over 40 year olds or female heads of agencies:
“Could the President decide that he wasn’t going to appoint or allow to remain in office any female heads of agencies or any heads over 40 years old?” Judge Karen Henderson, a Reagan appointee on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric McArthur Tuesday in proceedings over the fired board members of two independent agencies.
“I think that that would be within the President’s constitutional authority under the removal power,” he responded, adding that “there would be separate questions about whether that would violate other provisions of the Constitution.”
They truly believe that he has no limits although another judge on the panel did remind him that the 14th Amendment still exists. (For now.)
The DOJ is aiming to get these cases to the Supreme Court, where it’s betting that enough of the right-wing justices will agree to overturn the high court’s own precedent on independent agencies — encapsulated primarily in a 1936 case called Humphrey’s Executor — and axe the removal protections that keep leadership at such entities as the NLRB or MSPB insulated from political will or vindictiveness
I would guess they’re going to be happy to give him this one. The right wingers on the court raised in (or under the influence of) the Reagan Revolution really do believe in an extreme definition of presidential power. They may be shocked enough by some of the applications of it they are seeing unfold in this wild administration to find ways to curb some of the worst excesses but this one’s a gimme. They have never believed that any agency or sub-agency of the executive branch should be independent in any way. Trump will be allowed to fire the heads of these “independent agencies” at his whim. Whether he is allowed to close the agencies themselves or fire people en masse without cause are other cases that may have different outcomes simply because they are affected by different precedents that have wider application. But the Supreme majority is going to give him some wins, never doubt it.