Trump v. Wilcox, a case now pending on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” asks whether several federal agencies that are supposed to enjoy a degree of independence from the president should be stripped of that independence.

Wilcox is the latest in Supreme Court cases involving what’s known as the “unitary executive” theory, which, in its strongest form, would give presidents legal control over every federal job that’s not part of Congress or the judiciary. And this case doesn’t look particularly good for advocates for agency independence.

In previous unitary executive cases, the Court’s Republican majority has shown it is absolutely committed to an expansive view of presidential power — including the power to fire officials who are supposed to be independent from political pressure.

Nine decades ago, in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court upheld a law that protected the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from being fired except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” As the Court explained, members of the FTC “are called upon to exercise the trained judgment of a body of experts” — bringing technocratic knowledge to their decisions, even if their expert judgments depart from ideas that are politically fashionable.

Relying on this authority, Congress has created multiple similar agencies — the most important of which is the Federal Reserve, which, like the central banks in other successful nations, is supposed to set interest rates based on expert economic judgment and not based on what will benefit the sitting president. The consequences of stripping the Fed of this independence would be severe. In 1971, Fed chair Arthur Burns succumbed to pressure from President Richard Nixon to juice the economy going into Nixon’s reelection race. Burns’ actions are often blamed for the years of “stagflation” — slow economic growth and high inflation — that followed.

It’s difficult to exaggerate the........

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