His unlawful purge of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday serves all three goals at once. With these firings, Trump has paralyzed the board, asserted control over its agenda, and engineered a legal showdown over the scope of his constitutional authority.

The dismissals target two independent agencies that oversee swaths of U.S. workers, employers and labor unions.

Some agency employees who President Donald Trump terminated from their leadership roles Monday night are now “considering legal options.”