Supreme Court grants Trump request to fire certain independent agency members, says Federal Reserve is different

The court indicated that its decision does not necessarily apply to the Federal Reserve — a frequent target of Trump’s criticism on economic matters.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday granted a Trump administration request that allows the president to fire members of independent federal agencies while suggesting that its legal reasoning would not apply to the Federal Reserve.

The move to pause a lower court ruling formalizes a temporary decision along similar lines on April 9 that allowed President Donald Trump to fire Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

"The stay reflects our judgment that the government is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power," the court said in an unsigned order.

The government, it added, "faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty."

The high court’s three liberal justices dissented.