The Trump administration doesn’t believe that federal job protections for administrative law judges are constitutional, a legal stance that a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcer called the “final nail” in the coffin of the agency’s embattled tribunals.
In a Feb. 20 letter, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris informed Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that the “multiple layers of removal protections” for administrative law judges, or ALJs, constrained presidential authority in violation of Article II of the U.S. Constitution.