On July 27, 2024, former President Donald Trump gave a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee. During this address, Trump announced his intention, if elected in November, to remove Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “the Commission”) Chair Gary Gensler “on day one” and appoint a new Chair.1 Trump is not the first politician to call for the SEC Chair’s removal. In September 2008, then-presidential candidate John McCain vowed to remove SEC Chair Christopher Cox.2 Trump is also not the first politician to call for Gensler’s removal. House Representatives Warren Davidson and Tom Emmer introduced the SEC Stabilization Act in June 2023 to “restructure the Securities and Exchange Commission and remove Gary Gensler as Chair of the SEC.”3
Now, with the presidential election only two months away—and thus the possibility of an administration change prior to the expiration of Gensler’s term—what might otherwise be a hypothetical question becomes a realistic one: can the President remove the SEC Chair, or any SEC Commissioner, at will? The answer to this question is not clear. After beginning with an overview of the statutory authority governing the SEC and a brief discussion of case law defining the President’s removal power, this article will examine the legal support for and against presidential removal of SEC Commissioners at will.