Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[Robert from yahoo bd]

It looks like they formed an opinion before oral arguments that they never thought that the Acting Director was unconstitionally insulated, "In the Re-
covery Act, Congress expressly restricted the President’s
power to remove a confirmed Director but said nothing of
the kind with respect to an Acting Director. And Congress
might well have wanted to provide greater protection for a
Director who had been confirmed by the Senate than for an
Acting Director in whose appointment Congress had played
no role."

They ignored the fact that the POTUS had to pick 1 of 3 Acting Directors who was in turn selected by the FHFA Director. Doesn't seem like the POTUS could put someone in who necessarily sees eye to eye with him which is the Separation of Powers problem to begin with.

They took a pure textualist approach in reading HERA and relied on precedent to say that if HERA doesn't say they can't remove the Acting Director, then the POTUS can.

"That omission is telling. When a statute does not limit
the President’s power to remove an agency head, we gener-
ally presume that the officer serves at the President’s pleas-
ure. See Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U. S. 311, 316
(1903). Moreover, “when Congress includes particular lan-
guage in one section of a statute but omits it in another sec-
tion of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress
acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion
or exclusion.” Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438,
452 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). In the Re-
covery Act, Congress expressly restricted the President’s
power to remove a confirmed Director but said nothing of
the kind with respect to an Acting Director. And Congress
might well have wanted to provide greater protection for a
Director who had been confirmed by the Senate than for an
Acting Director in whose appointment Congress had played
no role."