Latest news with #Humphrey's
Boston Globe
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Humphrey dies again — giving Trump more power
The principle Humphrey's Executor stood for lasted for nearly a century: that the separate branches of government must be respected, including when they serve as checks on one another. The power of Congress, which makes the laws establishing federal agencies and governing how they operate, must be respected by the executive branch, lest the president become so powerful as to resemble a king. Advertisement But last week, the justices lifted a lower court injunction preventing Wilcox's and Harris's ousters, ruling that Trump is likely to ultimately succeed on the matter because 'the Constitution vests the executive power in the President' and 'he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents.' Advertisement '(W)e do not ultimately decide in this posture whether the NLRB or MSPB falls within such a recognized exception; that question is better left for resolution after full briefing and argument,' As is customary with matters on the court's emergency docket, the order was unsigned. But Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, making it clear that it was a 6-3 split along the court's traditional ideological lines. And boy, did Kagan make their disagreement clear. 'The current President believes that Humphrey's should be either overruled or confined,' 'Today, this Court effectively blesses those deeds,' Kagan continued. 'I would not. Our Humphrey's decision remains good law, and it forecloses both the President's firings and the Court's decision to award emergency relief.' I agree with everything Kagan wrote with the exception of one phrase: 'Our Humphrey's decision remains good law.' Since the order comes to the exact opposite conclusion as in Humphrey's — under a nearly identical fact pattern — clearly Humphrey's has been dealt a death blow. Advertisement So where does that leave other federal agencies? The court didn't even mention the standards laid out in Humphrey's, which limit the president's ability to oust the heads of 'quasi-judicial' or 'quasi-legislative' agencies — though it did expressly exempt the 'quasi-private' Federal Reserve from the president's broad power to fire. So Fed Chair Beyond that, given the court's recent expansion of presidential powers — most notably with last year's Trump immunity ruling — I fear that the court's majority will have no qualms with giving Trump the power to do what he loves most: firing people. If that functionally strips the agencies of independence — and potentially constitutionality — so be it. Long live the unitary executive! I agree with University of Pennsylvania law professor Kate Shaw that the court's order is 'radical.' 'Whatever one thinks about the underlying question of presidential authority, the court should not have disposed of the case this way,' Shaw wrote By contrast, University of Chicago law professor William Baude called the ruling 'both predictable and reasonable.' '(T)he court noted that past cases, such as the Humphrey's Executor precedent, had upheld the independence of multimember agencies that did not exercise significant executive power,' Baude wrote Advertisement I would have preferred later. Also worth noting are a couple of other high court nondecisions: The court The court also This is an excerpt from , a newsletter about the Supreme Court from columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at
The Hill
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Will the Supreme Court save the Fed's independence?
Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here The Federal Reserve has emerged as the 800-pound gorilla in the legal fight over President Trump's firings of agency leaders traditionally independent from the White House. The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority is increasingly signaling it wants to eviscerate precedent that has protected certain federal agency leaders from at-will termination by the president for nearly a century. But even as the justices eye the major expansion of presidential power, they are taking great care to shield the Fed, rejecting the notion that the court will imperil the institution's independence. 'The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,' the court stressed in an emergency ruling last week. Trump has long flirted with firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell over frustration that he has not brought interest rates down quicker. Last month, Trump said Powell's 'termination cannot come fast enough', only to say days later he has 'no intention' of firing the central banker. But the White House acknowledges it is studying the issue and Trump keeps ripping into Powell, raising continued speculation about whether he will eventually be canned. Meanwhile, questions about the Fed's independence are already looming large as the courts grapple with Trump's firings at other independent agencies despite their statutory removal protections. The terminations are part of an expansive view of presidential power advanced by Trump's White House that would give him near-total control over the executive branch. On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed Trump a major win in his effort by greenlighting his terminations of Democratic appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). It's the latest sign that the conservative justices may be on their way to overrule Humphrey's Executor v. United States, a 1935 Supreme Court decision that authorized Congress to provide for-cause removal restrictions for various federal agencies. Already, the conservative justices have limited the precedent's reach in a series of recent cases. But they have yet to formally overrule it. Many court watchers believe the justices are skeptical of Humphrey's Executor but are hesitant to eliminate the Fed's protections, given the central bank's role in setting monetary policy that at times can be politically unpopular. Remarkably, the court dedicated one of the four paragraphs in Thursday's order to distinguishing the Fed, suggesting its 'historical tradition' could justify removal protections even if the president has control over other traditionally independent agencies. In dissent, the court's three liberal justices said the comment was 'out of the blue' and asserted a simpler way to reassure the markets would have been to deny Trump's request. 'I am glad to hear it, and do not doubt the majority's intention to avoid imperiling the Fed,' wrote Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'But then, today's order poses a puzzle. For the Federal Reserve's independence rests on the same constitutional and analytic foundations as that of the NLRB, MSPB, FTC, FCC, and so on — which is to say it rests largely on Humphrey's,' Kagan continued. The NLRB and MSPB cases will now return to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But soon, they could return to the Supreme Court, putting the Fed back in the limelight. Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill's weekly courts newsletter, we're Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld. Email us tips (elee@ zschonfeld@ or reach out to us on X (@ByEllaLee, @ZachASchonfeld) and Signal (elee.03, zachschonfeld.48). Not already on the list? Subscribe here. Soon after jury selection concluded in President Trump's New York criminal trial last year, a man named Max Azzarello set himself on fire outside the courthouse. The self-immolation, which resulted in Azzarello's death, set a dramatic and dark tone at the trial's outset but ultimately faded into the background of the historic case. In New York Times reporter Jonah Bromwich's new book about the trial, 'Dragon on Centre Street,' Azzarello's full story is told for the first time. Bromwich's book takes readers inside the courtroom for an accurate and compelling account of Trump's seven-week criminal trial, inviting readers behind the curtain of the Times's reporting process on the historic case. He also reveals several newsy nuggets, including how porn actress Stormy Daniels missed her flight to New York and shook up the order of witnesses. But it is Bromwich's deep reporting of those on the fringe of the trial, like Azzarello, that stands out most. Azzarello grew up on Long Island. Bromwich detailed how he was interested in civics and 'alternatives to the mainstream,' like socialism or anarchism, and was not upset when Trump was elected in 2016, given his interest in widespread change. One of his sisters had worked as a wardrobe assistant on The Celebrity Apprentice, invisible string connecting Azzarello and Trump long before that fateful day outside the courthouse. He was close with his mother, who died in April 2022 after a battle with chronic illness. In the spring of 2023, he became 'captured by an obsession' that 'almost everyone' in American public life was secretly fascist – Trump, former President Biden, the Clintons, Elon Musk, Whoopi Goldberg and more. He posted these beliefs on social media 'constantly' but struggled to convince anyone, including his father, Richard, and two sisters. He struggled to be noticed. Azzarello's online persona laid bare his personal struggles. He described himself as a 'research investigator' on LinkedIn, his bio warning that 'We've got a secret fascism problem.' On Instagram, he'd bombard his followers with his theory. When he'd talk about his theory, his whole personality – even his voice – would change. 'Max was increasingly in pain,' Bromwich wrote. 'No one would listen to him.' In August 2023, months after Trump's indictment, Azzarello was arrested several times for disorderly conduct. When his probation ended in April 2024, he made plans to travel to New York, where cameras would be fixed on Trump's trial – and he could finally get his message out. Minutes after the jury selection process concluded, Azzarello doused himself in liquid from a canister held above his head and lit a flame. He was quickly consumed by the fire. Bromwich reported that Azzarello's father had turned on MSNBC to see the latest on jury selection. A reporter in front of the courthouse described the spectacle of a man on fire. 'Oh no. Please don't be Max,' Richard Azzarello said to himself before putting the thought out of his mind, Bromwich reported. But about 90 minutes later, he received a 'hysterical' call from one of his daughters. Want to learn more? Bromwich will appear in conversation with New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt at Politics & Prose Thursday. Buried deep in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — the budget reconciliation bill making its way through Congress — is a provision that could sharply limit district courts' ability to enforce their rulings blocking Trump's policies The provision instructs that no U.S. court may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if 'no security' was given when the injunction or order was issued. It cites Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), which requires federal judges to decide whether a bond is needed when an injunction or temporary restraining order is sought. Usually, judges waive the bond requirement when a plaintiff alleges a constitutional violation by the U.S. government, FindLaw managing editor Joseph Fawbush wrote in a blog post about the provision. 'Otherwise, it could be hard for many plaintiffs to challenge government laws and actions as unconstitutional,' he wrote. Judges have issued dozens of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders against the Trump administration, oftentimes waiving the bond requirement. Just last week, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun, an appointee of former President Biden who serves in Boston, did so when he blocked Trump's dismantling of the Education Department. However, under the new rule, contempt enforcement would not be possible when a judge waives the bond. The orders are enforced by the U.S. Marshals Service, whose funding is appropriated by Congress. That would render toothless any injunctions or temporary restraining orders issued against the Trump administration where the security requirement was waived, because judges would not be able to enforce contempt rulings if the orders were violated. The 1,116-page budget reconciliation bill, including the contempt provision, has already passed the House but it has yet to reach the Senate for a vote. Read Tuesday's full order list here. IN: Compassionate release The Supreme Court agreed to take up one of the relists we highlighted in last week's Petition Pile, Fernandez v. United States. The third time was the charm for Joe Fernandez, who twice before unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review his case at earlier stages. This time, however, the court agreed to take up a question that could shorten Fernandez's life sentence for a murder-for-hire conspiracy to time served. At issue is the scope of judges' discretion under the compassionate release statute, which allows courts to reduce a defendant's sentence for 'extraordinary and compelling reasons.' Fernandez was sentenced to life in prison over his role in a 2000 shooting that killed two members of a Mexican drug cartel, who traveled to New York to collect a debt from a drug ringleader. Raising questions about the jury's verdict and noting his co-conspirators received lower sentences, a federal district judge granted Fernandez's motion for compassionate release. Fernandez petitioned the Supreme Court after an appeals court reversed the judge's ruling. The appeals court said Fernandez's arguments didn't qualify as 'extraordinary and compelling reasons' because they circumvented the normal process for challenging the validity of a criminal conviction. The justices will now review the matter, with oral arguments likely to be set for late this year. OUT: Flat Oak and student's 'two-genders' shirt Finally, at last! After relisting Apache Stronghold v. United States a whopping 15 times, the court spoke on Tuesday. We've covered the backstory in several previous editions, but here's a quick recap: The federal government is preparing to transfer Flat Oak, a sacred Apache religious site, so it can be converted into a copper mine. The petition sought to block the transfer on religious grounds. The court turned away the petition alongside a 17-page dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, complete with a map and photo. Gorsuch, the Supreme Court's staunchest defender of American Indian rights, called the court's refusal 'a grievous mistake' with consequences 'that threaten to reverberate for generations.' 'Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time,' Gorsuch wrote. 'Faced with the government's plan to destroy an ancient site of tribal worship, we owe the Apaches no less. They may live far from Washington, D.C., and their history and religious practices may be unfamiliar to many. But that should make no difference.' Justice Samuel Alito recused from the case, and the duo failed to convince at least two more of their colleagues to take up the dispute. Separately, the court turned away another petition we highlighted when it was first relisted. In L.M. v. Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, the court declined to hear a student's challenge to his school district blocking him from wearing a T-shirt to class that reads, 'There are only two genders.' Thomas and Alito both publicly dissented. The student claimed the ban violates the Supreme Court's 1969 decision, Tinker v. Des Moines, that famously permitted students to wear to school armbands protesting the Vietnam War. But a lower court rejected the claim. In a brief, solo dissent, Thomas repeated his longstanding criticism of Tinker but stressed it remains binding precedent that lower courts must follow. Alito authored a far longer dissent, saying the lower court had distorted the Supreme Court's First Amendment caselaw. 'Just as in Tinker, some of L.M.'s classmates found his speech upsetting,' wrote Alito, joined by Thomas. 'Feeling upset, however, is an unavoidable part of living in our 'often disputatious' society.' The court has relisted four petitions for the first time, adding to the nine others we've covered in previous editions that remain pending. The first new relist, Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, implicates states that allow mail ballots to be received after Election Day. Republicans have looked to crack down on the practice by suing in court. A lower court rejected such a challenge brought by Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.) and two of Trump's electors from Illinois, finding they had no legal standing. Bost and the electors want the Supreme Court to review that finding and revive their case. In Hamm v. Smith, the justices will return to the death row case of Joseph Clifton Smith. In November, the court sent Smith's case back to a lower court to clarify its ruling surrounding his low IQ test scores and whether they make him ineligible for the death penalty. Days later, the lower court again affirmed he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for capital punishment. Alabama's Republican attorney general now seeks the Supreme Court's review, with the Trump administration's backing. In The GEO Group v. Menocal, the court is asked to wade into a dispute concerning a major government contractor that operates immigration detention facilities. Alejandro Menocal, who was detained in GEO's Aurora, Colo., facility, brought forced labor claims against the company. Government contractors have immunity from damages suits when the contractor was 'lawfully' carrying out work 'authorized and directed' by the government, but a judge ruled GEO's alleged conduct went beyond that so the case could move forward. The company tried to appeal, but the circuit court found the lower ruling isn't immediately appealable, and GEO needs to wait for the trial court proceedings to conclude. GEO now wants the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling and allow the company's immunity appeal to immediately move forward. The final relist, Hencely v. Fluor Corporation, also concerns government contractors. Former U.S. Army Specialist Winston Hencely, who was critically injured in 2016 by a suicide bomber at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, is seeking to revive his lawsuit against the defense contractor that employed the bomber. An Army investigation found the contractor breached its contract with the Army and the breach contributed to the attack. Hencely attempted to sue under South Carolina state law, but an appeals court held that his claims are preempted by federal law. Hencely says the justices should take up the case to resolve a split among the lower courts about how to interpret a 1988 Supreme Court decision on the issue. Today Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday We'll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with our coverage here.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fed Takeover, Judge Firings, Erosion Of Guards Against Autocracy: Judge Lays Out Stakes Of Trump Agency Takeover
While the conservative judges on Friday tried to find a way to overturn Supreme Court precedent before the Court itself gets a chance to do it, the sole liberal on a three-judge appeals court panel used the hearing to lay bare the ramifications of President Trump's attempt to take over independent agencies. 'Your position is: We're not allowed to have independent agencies in this country even if they can be beneficial, like the Federal Reserve,' Judge Florence Pan said to the DOJ's Harry Graver, adding: 'Can you explain why that's a good way to run a government?' Trump had fired members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board at the beginning of his term, a couple of whom filed lawsuits that will likely determine whether independent agencies can continue to have protections from at-will firing. The Supreme Court has been steadily hacking away at those protections, and if they clear the way for Trump to fire these members too, the entire executive branch — including agencies whose independence have long been considered sacrosanct, like the Federal Reserve — will be under Trump's direct power. Pan, a Biden appointee, pushed Graver on whether administrative law judges could be fired at will under his hypothetical new world order, and admonished him for evading her questions about whether the leaders of the Federal Reserve could be axed at Trump's will. 'If a president is running for reelection, he would like the Fed to lower interest rates to goose the economy and he pressures the Fed to do so and the Fed says no, he could fire the Fed and all the governors — and that enhances liberty?' she asked incredulously. The Trump appointees on the panel, Judges Justin Walker and Greg Katsas, were carrying out different missions. Walker has already ruled in favor of the Trump administration for these firings as part of a different panel. He wrote then that Humphrey's Executor, the Supreme Court precedent that protects members of certain independent agencies from being fired, is a 'benched quarterback' and would construe its power so narrowly as to overturn it in essence. Katsas, a former deputy White House counsel under Trump, took a more measured tone. While clearly amenable to the government's arguments, he struggled more with how to greenlight the firings while Humphrey's Executor is still good law. 'The only thing you're willing to definitively put in the Humphrey's bucket is some board that runs the Kennedy Center or something,' Katsas said skeptically to the DOJ's attorney, asking if that's really a 'plausible' reading of the Supreme Court case that explicitly preserved Humphrey's Executor as good precedent. All of these cases are really just overture. The fired board members have been reinstated for brief stints while the litigation unwinds, but the lower court action is just, as one judge put it, a 'speed bump' on the way to the Supreme Court. That some conservative judges have been willing to at least temporarily permit the firings is a helpful metric to show how far right they've moved; this case should be open and shut on the lower levels, while Supreme Court precedent still protects these board members from at-will firing. But the administration has been (candidly) trudging through the lower courts as necessary hurdles to get before the Supreme Court, where it's betting that enough of the bench's right wing is ready to overturn the last substantive independent agency protection. 'Separation of powers is…supposed to prevent autocracy and the question is, why are these more than 30 agencies — which were designed by Congress to be independent — why do we need to move them under the control of the executive? Pan asked.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump backs off his push to fire Fed's Powell
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has 'no intention' of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. 'Never did,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'The press runs away with things.' Trump's comments Tuesday may seem at odds with a post he made last week on Truth Social, expressing that Powell's 'termination cannot come fast enough!' 'The [European Central Bank] is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, 'Too Late' Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete 'mess!'' Trump wrote. 'Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now.' Trump doubled down Monday, asserting, in another post, that there is 'virtually no inflation … but there can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW.' Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters Friday that Trump was studying whether he's able to fire Powell. 'Not permitted under the law,' Powell said in November, after Trump's reelection, in response to a reporter's question on the subject. The seven members of the Fed's Board of Governors can only be removed 'for cause,' according to the Federal Reserve Act. That typically is interpreted as malfeasance, dereliction of duty or other serious misconduct. A 1930s Supreme Court ruling commonly referred to as Humphrey's Executor also backs that up. The Justice Department, however, is seeking to overturn that standard as part of its argument pertaining to Trump's move to fire the top brass at several independent agencies over policy disagreements. 'The [Supreme Court] has a route available to it if it wants to distinguish the Fed,' former Fed Gov. Dan Tarullo, told The New York Times. Despite the turnabout in his comments, Trump reiterated some criticism of Powell on Tuesday. 'I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates … and would like to see our chairman be early or on time, as opposed to late,' Trump said. 'If he doesn't, is it the end? No. It's not.' Markets rebounded in the wake of the Tuesday comments. Futures tracking the S&P 500 increased 2.5%, while those for the Nasdaq index jumped 2.7% on Wednesday. 'Clearly other folks have talked to [Trump] and explained that [firing Powell] would have caused huge volatility,' Dec Mullarkey, managing director at fund manager SLC Management, told the Financial Times. Mullarkey credited Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom he said 'recognizes that the integrity of markets has to be maintained.' 'This shows there are some guardrails around this president,' Mullarkey said. Mark Spindel, an investment manager who co-wrote a history of Fed independence, added Trump 'got the hint.' 'Firing Jay would be a catastrophic own goal,' Spindel told The Wall Street Journal. David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, stressed the importance of keeping the Fed's independence. 'This is an existentially threatening moment for the institution,' Wilcox told The New York Times. 'We may be on the cusp of throwing away an asset that has taken decades to accumulate.'
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's knives are out for Jerome Powell, setting up a Supreme Court showdown over the Fed's independence
President Trump has spent the first months of his presidency upending longstanding norms, from firing commissioners of independent agencies to ramping up tariffs against U.S. allies and rivals alike. But there is one line he hasn't crossed: Firing the head of the central bank. This week, though, new developments have raised fears that Trump could take the once-unthinkable step of dismissing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. On Thursday, Trump issued a tirade on his social media platform Truth Social, blasting the Fed Chair as always 'too late and wrong' about cutting interest rates, adding 'Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!' Meanwhile, a new report claims Trump has been privately telling aides he wants to remove Powell before his term expires in a year. Powell has said he would not resign if Trump asked. All of this sets up a potential legal showdown that could upend nearly a century of legal and political precedent—and that critics fear would destroy confidence in the U.S. economy. To understand what's at stake, Fortune asked law professors and policy experts for their view on an explosive issue that is fast making its way to the Supreme Court. Trump, whose recent outburst came after a Powell speech stating that tariffs could exacerbate inflation, has not taken formal steps to dismiss the Fed Chair. But he has fired commissioners from other independent agencies that fall under the executive branch, including the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. These moves come as a direct challenge to a nearly century-old precedent, where a unanimous Supreme Court, in a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States, held that President Franklin Roosevelt could not remove the heads of an independent agency without a good reason such as neglect or wrongdoing. 'That's a really foundational Supreme Court precedent,' said Hayley Durudogan, a senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. 'It's been used as the backbone for a lot of independent agency developments.' The conservative legal movement, though, has for decades worked to chip away at the ruling, putting forth a 'unitary executive' theory, which claims the president must have broad power over the executive branch of government—including over its various agencies. The movement has had some success. In a 2020 ruling, the Supreme Court narrowed Humphrey's Executor by finding that presidents can remove heads of agencies that do not have multi-member commissions, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Oliver Dunford is a senior attorney at the right-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation, which has petitioned the top court to fully revisit Humphrey's Executor, in part because the power of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission has expanded since the original decision, allowing them to carry out more executive functions. He told Fortune that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the case, saying that 'President Trump may change the calculus somewhat, but I think it was definitely moving in that direction.' Noah Rosenblum, a law professor at New York University, is not so sure, arguing that Humphrey's Executor has been a 'fundamental part of the way our government operates.' 'It just happens that we're living through a moment in time in which a bunch of movement judges have captured the Supreme Court and are trying to implement a political theory that has been roundly rejected for most of American history,' he told Fortune. During the first few months of his second term, Trump's removal of a number of commissioners from different agencies has created a collision course with the Supreme Court. Still, Joel Alicea, a law professor at the Catholic University, argued that these moves are consistent with a decades-old position of the conservative legal movement that holds the president has broad authority to remove subordinate executive officers. 'What's distinctive about the president is that he is willing to test this legal question,' Alicea told Fortune. Firing Powell, however, would be a separate matter altogether. According to Dunford, the question of whether the Federal Reserve should be treated like other independent agencies, such as the FTC, remains murky. 'To be perfectly frank, I don't think anyone has a unified theory of why the Fed is different, but we do think there's something different about it,' he said. That difference could be rooted in the historical governance structure of the predecessor organizations to the Federal Reserve, the First and Second Banks of the United States, or in the type of power that the Fed wields. Still, Dunford said that even if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Humphrey's Executor, it would likely narrow the scope of the decision to say it did not extend to the question of whether the president can fire the Fed chair. Even Dunford, who has argued that Humphrey's Executor should be overturned, said that he does not believe the Fed should be included. NYU's Rosenblum, however, argues that any attempts by the conservative legal movement to differentiate the Federal Reserve from independent agencies have been 'scholastic exercises in trying to invest distinctions.' He said that overturning Humphrey's Executor would likely put the independence of the Fed at risk. 'Even the most presidentialist reactionaries are aware that it would be an economic disaster,' he told Fortune. One case involving Humphrey's Executor has already reached the Supreme Court. It turns on Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the NLRB, who persuaded a federal court to reinstate her after Trump removed her from the agency. After an appeals court kept that decision in place, the White House turned to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to put the reinstatement on hold until the court has an opportunity to consider the arguments in full later this year. Legal experts say it's unlikely the Supreme Court will issue a full decision on the NLRB case—including whether it will overturn Humphrey's Executor—before its current term expires this summer. That means it could be months until a final ruling is issued, though the Supreme Court could block Wilcox from returning to her post in the interim. Even if the Supreme Court does use the NLRB case to overturn Humphrey's Executor, it would likely remain unclear if that ruling extended to the Federal Reserve. That, of course, would not preclude Trump from firing Powell—it would just mean that the legal challenges are only beginning. Those would likely include an emergency petition to temporarily keep Powell in his job. Some legal scholars have argued that the Supreme Court has kept Humphrey's Executor in place specifically because of fears over the Federal Reserve's independence. But with Trump now threatening to fire Powell, Rosenblum described the possibility as a 'chickens coming home to roost moment.' 'The Supreme Court has been willing to expand the power of the presidency in many spheres,' he said. 'But obviously the Supreme Court, more so than the current administration, remains concerned about old-fashioned rule of law values, and they may also be concerned about destabilizing the American economy.' 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