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“Article II of the Constitution vests the ‘executive Power’ in ‘a President of the United States’ and requires him to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ ‘To protect individual liberty, the Framers created a President independent from the Legislative Branch,’” Walker wrote in the court’s opinion.
The decision directly challenged earlier rulings from Judges Rudolph Contreras and Beryl Howell, who previously sided with Biden’s appointees. In early March, Contreras ruled against Trump’s removal of Harris. Just days later, Howell claimed Trump lacked the power to fire Wilcox.
Harris was tapped for her role in 2022, while Wilcox has had a long tenure under Biden, including a recent promotion in 2024 to serve as NLRB Chair, according to Daily Caller reporting.
Legal teams for both Wilcox and Harris fought hard to keep their clients in power, arguing that Trump’s actions violated agency independence. Wilcox’s lawyers argued that any expansion of presidential firing authority “should” be decided by the Supreme Court.
But Trump’s legal team pushed back hard, insisting that limiting the president’s ability to fire agency officials undermines the core principle of separation of powers and dangerously weakens presidential authority. This court seems to agree.
This fight over agency appointees isn’t new. Biden himself made headlines in 2021 when he abruptly fired NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb just hours after taking office. Robb refused to resign, calling the firing “unprecedented.” As he put it: “The removal of an incumbent General Counsel of the NLRB prior to the expiration of the term by a President of the United States is unprecedented since the nascence of the National Labor Relation Act (NLRA) and the NLRB,” Bloomberg Law reported.
In that case, however, Biden’s decision was upheld. The Ninth Circuit ruled in 2023 that Robb’s position was “at will,” meaning the president could remove him without cause. But board members like Wilcox don’t serve at will—removal typically requires proof of misconduct or dereliction of duty under the NLRA.
Even so, this latest ruling tips the balance back toward the executive branch and offers a key reminder: the president is still the one at the helm, even when it comes to so-called “independent” agencies.
Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, dissented from the majority opinion and accused the other two judges of trying to “rewrite” existing Supreme Court precedent.
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The legal showdown comes as Trump’s team is locked in battles across the judicial landscape, defending a broad array of executive actions. One of the most closely watched cases concerns Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of a dangerous Venezuelan gang, which his administration labeled a terror group.
Just this week, Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court to step in after a lower court blocked the deportations. Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris didn’t mince words in her defense of presidential authority.
“This case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country – the President, through Article II, or the judiciary,” she said. “The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice.”
As the legal tide turns, Trump’s fight to reassert presidential power just scored a major victory—one that could reshape the future of agency leadership for years to come.
