Biden’s Ouster of Social Safety Commissioner: A Step within the Proper Course

Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled the case of during a wave of key decisions Collins v. Yellen on June 23. This siege, which is summarized below, led the Biden administration to conclude that it had a constitutional right to oust then-Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), Andrew Saul – a holdover from the Trump administration, and wasted no time exercising this power.

More specifically, on July 9, after denying a White House official’s request for immediate resignation, President Biden has sacked Commissioner Saul. A similar motion had been made by Saul’s Deputy Commissioner David Black, who, when asked, agreed to resign. Biden quickly appointed Kilolo Kijakazi, the current Deputy Commissioner for Aging and Disability Policy, as deputyActing SSA Commissioner, and, as any good employer would, it went on Cut off Saul’s remote access to SSA’s computer system as part of the employment “offboarding” process. Saul has called that fire an inappropriate “Friday Night Massacre” which instead argues that he is the “newspaper-protected social security commissioner” whose six-year term would otherwise have outlasted Biden’s four-year term and would have ended in January 2025.