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... That trio of rulings has stymied the administration's efforts to advance an expansive view of executive power that would allow the president to install loyalists without Senate confirmation and fire those he perceives as disloyal without cause.

Across the country, federal judges have told him he can't do either.

In Washington state, a federal judge ruled last month that Trump's firing of a U.S. attorney who had been appointed by the district's judges was unlawful. Allowing the president to terminate a court-appointed U.S. attorney "would upend the framework created by the Constitution and the statutes, which together balance the president's right to appoint and the Senate's right to confirm," the Barack Obama appointee wrote. The Justice Department is appealing that decision.

In California, a federal judge on Friday said Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has been serving unlawfully. Trump doesn't have the right to keep Essayli in charge while he operates as the office's No. 2, the George W. Bush appointee said.

And in New York, a federal judge ruled last week that Article II of the Constitution didn't give Trump the right to fire Maurene Comey, once a star prosecutor in Manhattan who was terminated last summer without explanation. "[I]n purporting to fire Comey pursuant to Article II and the laws of the United States, Defendants invented a new and expansive theory of executive power," the Obama appointee wrote. ...