...the President is already nominally in charge of these agencies, that's the point. They're executive agencies, the President is the unitary head of the executive. Their current "independence" is predicated on their ability to act as arms of the President in the enforcement of law, that's it.

Trump's point is that they are no longer listening to the President, and that's a grave problem which needs to be solved immediately, or we're just a military/intelligence junta by another name. Gato, and potentially you, and the NY Times, appear to think that these agencies live in some kind of independent branch of government that a President could conquer and use to increase his own executive power.

I understand the desire to not have one single person with full executive power, but I'd much rather have an elected body or person with full executive power than thousands of people who cannot be removed from office holding that full executive power, and the current civic system of the US is extremely clear that the executive is supposed to be unitary.