Trump claims that he has greater power over the agencies

Illusions of the DOJ and the Trump Administration: The Case of Musk, DOGE, FDIC, FOPM and the Attorney General

The states still have the opportunity to pursue the case on the merits, and file for a preliminary injunction. That would provide a new opportunity to seek to stop Musk and DOGE’s access to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Transportation.

Chutkan seems open to parts of the states case. The AGs “raise a colorable Appointments Clause claim with serious implications. Musk is not required to be nominated by the president or confirmed by the senate due to his exercising significant authority under the laws of the United States. The Appointments Clauseseeks to prevent executive abuses by accepting the allegations as true. The Trump administration counsel was reprimanded by Chutkan for suggesting an officials sworn declaration about the authority of the executive order seems to clash with the plain text of the order. “Defense counsel is reminded of their duty to make truthful representations to the court,” she writes.

New Mexico Attorney General Ral Torrez says that they are not disappointed that the court didn’t issue a temporary restraining order. With little apparent supervision, Musk is disrupting funding for education, public health and national security every day that he is allowed to operate. His move fast and break things mentality is not only reckless, but also unconstitutional, and we are prepared to pursue this case for as long as it takes to bring this chaos to an end.”

In Trump’s first term, his White House asked the Justice Department for an opinion on whether he could make independent agencies submit to White House regulatory review. The DOJ said yes, but Trump did not pursue it.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is an independent agency which issues recalls and safety warnings, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a regulatory agency that protects bank deposits.

The independence of monetary policy is one of the reasons the Federal Reserve is considered to be an important factor in stabilizing the economy.

The Independent Sector of the Treasury: Trump’s First Five Years at the White House, and Project 2025’s Implication for the Separation of Powers

“Given Trump’s insistence on complete loyalty to him on the part of all government employees, this move is designed to extend his grip on the government to areas that previously have been nonpartisan,” said Daniel Farber, a law professor at University of California, Berkeley, who clerked for the moderate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in an email.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board were both firing high-ranking officials when Trump took office. Those decisions have already sparked lawsuits against the administration that claim the firings were illegal. The order could result in legal action.

Russell Vought is director of the Office of Management and Budget. The consumer financial protection bureau acting director stopped all staff from performing any work tasks.

Vought advocated against the concept of independent agencies in an interview with far-right broadcaster Tucker Carlson shortly after Trump’s November election.

“There are no independent agencies. Congress may have viewed them as such, SEC or the FCC, CFPB, the whole alphabet soup, but that is not something that the Constitution understands,” he said. There may be different ways to dismantle them. The whole idea of an independent agency should be thrown out as an administration.

The prospect of bringing independent agencies under White House control is laid out in Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for government that Trump tried to distance himself from during the campaign.

The 1935 Supreme Court decision says that a president can’t fire the head of an independent agency. Project 2025’s chapter on the Department of Justice argues that that decision violates the separation of powers.

“I think the court has been saying for years that Congress can’t give for-cause protections to these agencies,” he said. “I think the handwriting’s on the wall.”

Indeed, the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative supermajority, has for years been eroding the power of regulatory agencies. Five of it’s six conservatives served as White House lawyers.

” One result will be to give the president more control over the financial sector especially via the SEC,” Farber said, adding that Trump would also have more control over labor and trade. The ultimate result, he said could be regulatory whiplash.

“These areas of law have some degree of stability because of the Commission system, so rules don’t completely flip after every election,” Farber said. That would change with Trump’s order.