WASHINGTON- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed President Donald Trump more authority over a federal agency charged with protecting consumers in the financial sector, empowering him to fire its director at will and ruling that the structure it was given by Congress violated the U.S. Constitution.

The court, in a 5-4 decision, stopped short of the much more drastic solution of invalidating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency set up in 2011 under Democratic former President Barack Obama that long has been criticized by Trump and his fellow Republicans. The justices ruled in favor of California-based law firm Seila Law LLC, which challenged the agency's structure after being investigated by it.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) ((lawrence.hurley@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @lawrencehurley; +1 202-809-3080;))