WASHINGTON >> Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled today they will uphold the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member and give a historic boost to presidential power while also imperiling a 90-year-old legal precedent.

The justices heard about 2-1/2 hours of arguments in the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that Trump exceeded his authority when he moved to dismiss Democratic FTC member Rebecca Slaughter in March before her term was set to expire. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has backed Trump in a series of cases since he returned to the presidency in January.

The conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the administration’s arguments that tenure protections given by Congress to the heads of inde

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