US President Donald Trump makes an announcement from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on December 3, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-reynolds | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump may remove members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board at will, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The 2-1 decision from a panel of judges in Washington, D.C., reverses lower-court rulings blocking Trump’s attempts to fire members of the key labor and employment panels.
“Congress may not restrict the President’s ability to remove principal officers who wield substantial executive power,” the two-judge majority wrote, citing a 2020 case known as Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
They determined that another key court precedent, which was cited in the prior rulings that favored the fired board members, did not apply to the NLRB and MSPB.
Those boards “wield substantial powers that are both executive in nature and different from the powers” that are covered by the removal protections laid out in the 1935 case known as Humphrey’s Executor, the majority wrote.
“So, Congress cannot restrict the President’s ability to remove NLRB or MSPB members,” ruled Judges Gregory Katsas and Justin Walker, who were both appointed to the D.C. circuit by Trump.
The third judge on the appellate panel, Florence Pan, warned in a strongly worded dissent that Friday’s ruling significantly increases the president’s power.
“Today, my colleagues make us the first court to strike down the independence of a traditional multimember expert agency,” Pan, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote.
“Under my colleagues’ reasoning, it appears that no independent agencies may lawfully exist in this country,” she wrote. “Their determination that the MSPB cannot be independent … suggests that no agencies can be independent.”
Pan added that her colleagues “redefine the type of executive power that must be placed under the exclusive command of the President, and effectively grant him dominion over approximately thirty-three previously independent agencies.”
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