Supreme Court lets Trump fire FTC commissioner, weakens agency independence
The court's 6-3 ruling handed Trump the power to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and erased a 1935 shield for independent agencies.
The Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump the power to fire Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, overturning a 1935 precedent that had shielded independent agencies from direct White House control. In a 6-3 decision on June 29, 2026, the justices said the FTC’s removal protections are unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The court overruled Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the decision that had stood for nearly a century as the legal foundation for insulating multi-member regulatory agencies from politics. Federal law had limited FTC commissioner removals to “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” but Trump removed Slaughter in March 2025 without citing one of those causes.
The case had already moved through lower courts in Washington, where the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had blocked the firing before the Supreme Court stepped in. The justices then let Slaughter’s removal remain in effect in an emergency order in September 2025 while the litigation continued.
The decision expands presidential power over roughly two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress designed to operate independently. The court left open a special status for the Federal Reserve, preserving its “unique role” even as it weakened the independence model for other agencies.
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