Trump’s Justice Department believes the president has the authority to fire agency heads based on age and gender, according to a report from Talking Points Memo.
The stunning argument came during a testy court hearing Tuesday on Trump’s firing of board members at the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
“Could the president decide that he wasn’t going to appoint or allow to remain in office any female heads of agencies or any heads over 40 years old?” Judge Karen Henderson of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric McArthur at one point in the arguments.
“I think that that would be within the president’s constitutional authority under the removal power,” McArthur said. “There would be separate questions about whether that would violate other provisions of the Constitution.”
Lower courts have already ruled against Trump’s firings of the board members, and the panel of three judges on Tuesday appeared skeptical of the Justice Department’s reasoning. But the Trump administration welcomes these challenges so that it can drive its aggressive policies to the nation’s highest court, where they have an overwhelming ideological advantage.
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