
Trump urges Supreme Court to let him fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission
CNN
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to permit the firing of three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as the White House continues to attempt to assert more control over independent agencies.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to permit the firing of three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as the White House continues to attempt to assert more control over independent agencies. Trump dismissed the three Joe Biden-appointees in May, but a federal district court last month ordered their reinstatement. The administration is asking the Supreme Court to pause the lower court order, a move that would take the three commissioners off the board again. The appeal is the latest to reach the high court dealing with the administration’s power to fire board members at agencies Congress set up to have independence from the whims of the White House. The court has been receptive to Trump’s arguments in earlier cases, giving his administration more control over those agencies – at least in the short term. The litigation around the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has “thrown the agency into chaos,” the Trump administration told the Supreme Court and has “put agency staff in the untenable position of deciding which commissioners’ directives to follow.” The agency is charged with protecting consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls and taking other enforcement steps. Trump has had considerable success with similar claims over independent agencies at the Supreme Court. In May, the court, in an unsigned opinion, allowed Trump to fire officials at two independent federal labor agencies that enforce worker protections. The Department of Justice heavily cited that outcome in its appeal to the high court Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.

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