On May 1, Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commissioner Moshe Marvit got a single email from a Trump aide: his job was terminated, effective immediately. No cause cited. No hearing. The government cut off his work phone the same day, and the commission laid off staff over the following weekend.
Federal law says mine safety commissioners serve six-year terms and can only be removed for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." Said Marvit's lawsuit: "Congress gave the President the authority to remove commissioners in a delimited set of circumstances."
The Supreme Court is set to rule this summer — in a parallel case involving a fired FTC member — on whether those removal protections are constitutional at all. Until then, coal and hard-rock miners are left asking who's minding the shaft. Working folks don't get due process when the boss fires them either, but the law said this one did.