The Unitary Executive Meets Its Limit: SCOTUS's Dual Ruling on Presidential Power Reshapes the Removal Landscape

The Paradox of June 30: Presidential Power Expanded and Constrained

On the final day of its 2025-2026 term, the Supreme Court delivered a pair of rulings that simultaneously strengthened and circumscribed presidential control over the executive branch—a constitutional tightrope walk that reveals the current Court's nuanced, if not entirely coherent, approach to the unitary executive theory. In one breath, the Court expanded presidential authority over executive-branch officials; in the next, it drew a hard line at the Federal Reserve, refusing to allow President Trump to remove Governor Lisa Cook. The result is a removal doctrine that is increasingly presidentialist in theory but carved up by exceptions that defy easy categorization.

For constitutional lawyers and administrative law practitioners, these twin rulings demand immediate attention. They signal that while the Roberts Court remains committed to dismantling the post-Humphrey's Executor architecture of independent agencies, it is unwilling to treat the Federal Reserve as just another executive agency. The practical consequence: a new hierarchy of removal protection that turns on the Court's ad hoc assessment of an agency's function rather than any coherent textual or structural principle.

The Expansion: Presidential Control Over Executive Officials

According to Reuters, the Court "strengthened presidential control over executive-branch officials" in its June 30 ruling, building on the trajectory established in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, 591 U.S. 197 (2020), and Collins v. Yellen, 594 U.S. 220 (2021). While the specific agency at issue remains unidentified in the available reporting, the decision appears to extend the logic of those precedents: Article II's vesting of "the executive Power" in the President, U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 1, carries with it the constitutional prerogative to remove principal officers at will.

This is not merely doctrinal housekeeping. For practitioners challenging agency actions, the ruling provides new ammunition. If an official is unconstitutionally insulated from removal, any action they take may be void ab initio under the logic of Lucia v. SEC, 585 U.S. 237 (2018), and United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U.S. 1 (2021). We should expect a wave of challenges to agency decisions rendered by officials whose removal protections now rest on constitutionally infirm foundations.

The ruling also has immediate implications for the ongoing litigation over the FTC, NLRB, and other multi-member commissions. If the Court continues its march toward a pure unitary executive, the statutory removal protections in 15 U.S.C. § 41 (FTC) and 29 U.S.C. § 153(a) (NLRB) may be next on the chopping block. General counsel at these agencies should be preparing contingency plans for a post-removal-protection world.

The Limit: The Federal Reserve Exception

Yet the same day, the Court refused to allow President Trump to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, preserving—for now—the Fed's unique insulation from presidential control. This is not a minor carve-out. The Federal Reserve's independence has long rested on a fragile foundation: the assumption that monetary policy requires insulation from political pressure, a principle with no explicit textual basis in the Constitution.

The Court's refusal to extend its unitary executive logic to the Fed suggests that functional considerations still matter. The central bank's role in setting interest rates and managing the money supply, the Court seems to say, is sufficiently distinct from core executive functions to warrant different treatment. This is a pragmatic, not textual, distinction—and therein lies the problem.

As Justice Kagan warned in her Seila Law dissent, the majority's approach "has no basis in the Constitution's text or history" and instead reflects a "free-floating" theory of presidential power. Seila Law, 591 U.S. at 270 (Kagan, J., dissenting). The Fed exception proves her point: if the unitary executive theory is constitutionally compelled, why does it stop at the Federal Reserve? The answer, it appears, is that the Court is making policy judgments about which agencies require independence, not applying neutral constitutional principles.

What This Means for Practitioners

The immediate practical consequences are threefold. First, challenges to agency actions should now routinely include removal-based constitutional claims. If the official who rendered the decision was unconstitutionally insulated from removal, the action may be invalid. Second, the Fed's continued independence means that monetary policy remains insulated from direct presidential control—for now. But the Court's willingness to entertain the challenge suggests that this protection is not absolute.

Third, and most importantly, the Court's approach creates uncertainty. The line between "executive" and "quasi-legislative" or "quasi-judicial" functions—the distinction at the heart of Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935)—is increasingly unstable. Practitioners cannot rely on the assumption that independent agencies will remain independent. The safe harbor of Humphrey's Executor is eroding, and the Court has provided no clear alternative framework.

"The Court's removal jurisprudence has become a constitutional Rorschach test: the Justices see presidential power where they want to see it, and independence where they deem it necessary. This is not doctrine; it is discretion."

The Road Ahead

The Court's dual rulings on June 30 are not the end of this story. The shadow docket has already seen emergency applications related to removal disputes, and the 2026-2027 term promises more. The pending challenge to the FTC's structure, combined with ongoing litigation over the CFPB's funding mechanism, suggests that the Court will have multiple opportunities to refine—or further muddle—its removal doctrine.

For now, the message to practitioners is clear: the unitary executive is ascendant, but its reach is not unlimited. The Federal Reserve stands as a testament to the Court's willingness to carve out exceptions where it deems them necessary. Whether this reflects constitutional principle or political pragmatism is a question the Court has yet to answer—and may never answer directly.

In the meantime, litigators should treat every agency action as potentially vulnerable to a removal-based challenge. The constitutional ground is shifting, and those who fail to adapt risk being left behind.