The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings about the president’s power to remove executive branch officials cemented a court majority’s embrace of a unitary executive theory, but the breadth of this power remains in question, wrote McGuireWoods partner Jonathan Ellis in the July 31, 2026, edition of Westlaw Today, a publication of Thomson Reuters.
Ellis, who co-leads the firm’s Appeals and Issues Practice Group, contrasted the court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, affirming the president’s power to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission without cause, to the court’s decision in Trump v. Cook, issued the same day, holding that the president cannot fire a Federal Reserve governor without cause. And he highlighted the Slaughter majority’s decision not to define the full scope of its constitutional rule.
Also unresolved, Ellis noted, “is how much the [Slaughter] decision will change day-to-day agency practice at formerly independent agencies.” Presidents have long possessed the power to “name chairs, fill vacancies through appointment and confirmation, influence agency budgets through the Office of Management and Budget, and increasingly use regulatory review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to shape major agency action.”
“That practical point,” Ellis concluded, “should temper celebratory and dire reactions alike.”
Earlier in his legal career, Ellis clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and represented the U.S. government before the Supreme Court as an assistant to the solicitor general. Executive power cases were among those, in the latter role, in which he represented the federal government before the high court.