- United States
- Wash.
- Letter
The Supreme Court's 6–3 ruling in Slaughter v. Trump is a constitutional emergency, and I need you to open a congressional investigation into how this administration is using its newly expanded removal power to entrench corruption. Trump fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter not for misconduct, but because her work was "inconsistent with [the] Administration's priorities." The Court just made that legal — and Trump is already celebrating it as "the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years."
This isn't abstract. The ruling hands Trump the ability to purge independent commissioners at the EEOC, EPA, SEC, FDIC, FCC, and the Nuclear Safety Board and replace them with loyalists. As Solicitor General Sauer put it, the president must control agency officials because they must "fear and obey" him. That's not a constitutional republic — that's a spoils system. The dissent was right: this gives the president "a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted."
Congress cannot sit on its hands while the executive branch is systematically stripped of independent oversight. Hold hearings. Subpoena records. Make clear on the record who benefits when regulators answer to Trump instead of the law.