Trump v. Cook · ¶39

If the Government’s (and JUSTICE THOMAS’s) test is too lenient, however, Cook’s is too stringent. Cook argues that we should interpret “cause” to refer only to the specific causes provided in other statutes as bases “for presidential removal”—specifically, as of 1935, inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance, and ineligibility. Brief in Opposition 20. But we see no reason why that should be so. It is true, of course, that some statutes by their terms incorporate an “external body of law,” as when a statute refers generally to defenses “available by law.” Jam, 586 U. S., at 210 (emphasis deleted; internal quotation marks omitted). That inference, however, works only if the statute actually references that body of law. The statute here does not. It refers to “cause” generally, 12 U. S. C. §242, a concept familiar to the common law. It does not refer to “causes that Congress has…

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