united-states constitutional-law case-law legal-citation
Can only the government official who appointed an employee fire that employee?
<p>In the PolitiFact article <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/apr/12/can-donald-trump-fire-special-counsel-robert-muell/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Can Donald Trump fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller?</a>, <a href="http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/faculty/professor/ric-simmons/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">law professor Ric Simmons</a> is quoted:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The Supreme Court has stated (outside the special counsel context) that only the government official who appointed an employee has the power to fire that employee.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>To what extent is this statement, supposedly by the US Supreme Court, true?</p>

<p>I would like to learn more about this, but I was not able to find any relevant cases or other material. Non-examples include</p>

<ul>
<li><em>Myers v. United States</em> (Congress cannot require Senate advice and consent for POTUS to remove appointees)</li>
<li><em>Humphrey's Executor v. United States</em> (POTUS can only remove quasi-legislative appointees for cause)</li>
<li><em>Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board</em> (statute held that PCAOB's board members could be removed only for cause by SEC members; SCOTUS changed to at will)</li>
</ul>

<p>I think we're talking about <em>In re Hennen</em>, which dealt with the removal of the clerk of the district court in Louisiana:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>It all these departments power is given to the secretary, to appoint
  all necessary clerks; 1 Story, 48; and although no power to remove is
  expressly given, yet there can be no doubt, that these clerks hold
  their office at the will and discretion of the head of the department.
  It would be a most extraordinary construction of the law, that all
  these offices were to be held during life, which must inevitably
  follow, unless the incumbent was removable at the discretion of the
  head of the department: the President has certainly no power to
  remove. These clerks fall under that class of inferior officers, the
  appointment of which the Constitution authorizes Congress to vest in
  the head of the department. The same rule, as to the power of removal,
  must be applied to offices where the appointment is vested in the
  President alone. The nature of the power, and the control over the
  officer appointed, does not at all depend on the source from which it
  emanates. The execution of the power depends upon the authority of
  law, and not upon the agent who is to administer it. And the
  Constitution has authorized Congress, in certain cases, to vest this
  power in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in the heads of
  departments; and <strong>all inferior officers appointed under each, by
  authority of law, must hold their office at the discretion of the
  appointing power</strong>. Such is the settled usage and practical construction
  of the Constitution and laws, under which these offices are held.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><em>In re Hennen</em>, 38 U.S. 230, 259–60, 10 L. Ed. 138 (1839) (emphasis added).</p>
