If Monday’s Supreme Court argument is any indication, the days of “independent” agencies acting as a fourth branch of government are numbered.

In Trump v. Slaughter, a solid majority of the justices seemed ready to confirm what the Constitution already implies: If an official is exercising executive power, the elected president has to be able to say, “You’re fired.”

The case arises from President Trump’s decision months ago to remove Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat he had first appointed (under the statutory requirements for partisan balance) and President Joe Biden later renominated.

Federal law says such agency heads can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” language the high court blessed in a 1935 decision known as Humphrey’s Executor.

That ruling invented “quasi‑legislative” and “quasi‑judicial” categories of federal agencies and treated the FTC as something other than an arm of the executive branch, helping to

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