About this episode

The episode discusses recent Supreme Court decisions affecting presidential power and the state of the intelligence community.

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Editor in Chief and co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Senior Editors Anna Bower and Michael Feinberg to talk through the latest in national security news, including: “Humphrey’s Executioner.” On June 29, the Supreme Court closed out its term with a trio of decisions on the president’s power to fire officials at supposedly independent agencies. In Trump v. Slaughter , a 6–3 majority upheld Trump’s firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and overruled the 90-year-old precedent Humphrey’s Executor , handing the president at-will removal power over roughly two dozen multimember agencies. The same day, in Trump v. Cook , the Court refused 5–4 to let Trump remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, carving out a special exemption for the central bank. And a day later, in Blanche v. Perlmutter , the justices declined to let Trump oust Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, whose office sits within the legislative branch. Taken together, what do these cases tell us about the unitary executive and the future of agency independence? “For Your Lies Only.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in freefall. Since…

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