This is setting up for a constitutional showdown, but it's a showdown between the President and Congress, rather than between the President and the courts. (Although if the courts don't rule his way, who knows.)
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The issue famously came up in the 1988 SCOTUS case of Morrison v. Olson, which upheld the Independent Counsel law. Scalia wrote a blistering (and pretty thoughtful) lone dissent arguing that anyone in the executive branch must answer to the President, or it'd create a constitutional Frankenstein...
...and a decade later, Ken Starr's pursuit of Bill Clinton's affair proved Scalia right (broken clock moment). After that experience, both parties agreed not to renew the independent counsel law. But other independent agencies remain, and that's what Trump is trying to go after in this order.
For what it's worth, one independent agency he doesn't go after in this order is the Fed, when it comes to monetary policy. He expressly says that's not covered. That should provide some comfort.
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