A major front in President Trump’s war on democratic norms has been his removal of officials who might obstruct his goals or check his power in some way: In the past few months alone, the list of ousted officials has included five inspectors general, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a senior agency scientist working on covid-19 responses. Each firing chipped away at legal guardrails aimed at preserving the integrity of executive action. In the aggregate, they’ve left the president much more free to pursue self-serving, illegal and even (in the public health context) hazardous paths.

Yet with an odd sense of timing — or perhaps pitch-black irony? — the Supreme Court on Monday gave its blessing to a broad reading of the president’s constitutional power to remove officials even in the face of strong congressional efforts to limit such firings.

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