Sonia Sotomayor silences Supreme Court chamber with blistering challenge to Trump lawyer

An exchange between Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Donald Trump's Solicitor General D. John Sauer briefly silenced the U.S. Supreme Court chamber Tuesday.

Sauer argued in Trump v. Slaughter – a case that could redefine the limits of presidential power over independent agencies and give the Trump more authority to fire officials – that the Constitution vests full removal authority in the president and that a 90-year precedent insulating officials inside those agencies should be discarded — showing how far the government intended to take the challenge, reported Newsweek.

“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent,” Sotomayor said.

Justice Samuel Alito asked Sauer to respond, and he assured the court that overturning the Humphrey’s Executor precedent – allowing President Donald Trump to fire independent agency leaders – would not fundamentally reshape the government.

“The sky will not fall,” Sauer said. “The entire government will move toward accountability to the people.”

The court's liberals appear inclined to believe those removal protections preserve congressional intentions in creating the agencies while the conservative majority appears to view those limits as incompatible with Article II of the Constitution.

“What you’re saying is the president can do more than the law permits," Sotomayor said.

That silenced the room, and Sauer hurriedly rephrased some of his earlier arguments in favor of reversing Humphrey.

“Humphrey's must be overruled," Sauer argued. "It has become a decaying husk with bold and particularly dangerous pretensions.”