at will

US employers generally have broad discretion to fire workers for any reason, as most staff are hired under "at-will" contracts.

And the secretary’s power of at-will removal resolves one part of the panel’s constitutional flaw.

The assumption in those early days was that the Project 2025 people, led by soon-to-be Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, would be doing the dirty work, such as implementing Schedule F, the order to make all federal workers into at-will employees.

Employees at the Department of Justice who had worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations were fired, despite their career status and protections from at-will removal.

President Trump has now fired a member of the National Labor Relations Board, despite explicit legal protections against at-will removal by the president.