WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission despite a federal law that is intended to restrict the White House’s power to control the agency.
The court, via an order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, temporarily blocked a judge’s ruling that reinstated Rebecca Kelly Slaughter while the case continues.
The order did not definitively signal how the court would address an emergency request made by the Trump administration to give the president broader authority to fire independent agency members without cause, but signals that it would likely grant it.
Slaughter, who briefly returned to the agency as a result of the lower court rulings, said in a statement she would “see this case through to the end” regardless of the court’s decision to let Trump remove her while the litigation continues.
“In the week I was back at the FTC it became even more clear to me that we desperately need the transparency and accountability Congress intended to have at bipartisan independent agencies,” she added.
Trump fired both Democratic commissioners on the five-person FTC in March, Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. Both challenged the move, although Bedoya later dropped out of the case. Slaughter is currently listed as a serving commissioner on the agency’s website, as the case has made its way through the courts.
The firings are a direct challenge to a 1935 Supreme Court precedent called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that upheld limits on the president’s ability to fire FTC commissioners without cause, a restriction Congress imposed to protect the agency from political pressure.
Under the 1914 law that set up the agency, members can only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
A federal judge in July ruled in favor of Slaughter, citing the 1935 ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reached a similar conclusion.
But the Supreme Court, whose majority has been skeptical of the concept of independent federal agencies that are not subject to presidential control, has undermined such protections in recent years in a series of cases involving other agencies.
Lawyers for the Trump administration argue that the removal restrictions unlawfully impose limits on the president’s power to control the executive branch as defined by Article 2 of the Constitution.
This year, Trump has also sought to remove members of other independent federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has allowed.
The FTC has five commissioners who serve seven-year terms —with no more than three from one political party. Slaughter and Bedoya both served as Democratic members, although Trump originally appointed Bedoya in 2018. President Joe Biden reappointed her in 2024.
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