The Supreme Court seems likely to embrace "unitary executive" theory (UET) in its upcoming case in Trump v. Slaughter , at least in so far as that theory mandates that the president have the power to fire lower-level executive branch officials with any significant policy discretion. It already strongly hinted in that direction in its May "shadow docket" decision in Trump v. Wilcox (though it also suggested the Federal Reserve is an exception to the rule).

Prominent originalist legal scholar Caleb Nelson (University of Virginia) recently posted an originalist critique of UET. Here's an excerpt:

Aside from its provisions about impeachment,… the Constitution does not specifically address the removal of officers in the executive branch (which, for this purpose, includes the enormous variety

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