The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant win on Monday by allowing him to fire officials at most independent agencies within the executive branch, undoing a nearly century-old precedent.
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The 6-3 majority ruled that Trump could fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission, while also ruling that he can fire the heads of similar agencies without cause. The decision overrules the court’s previous precedent set in the 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that the FTC’s removal protection provision “is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.”
“Our Constitution creates three branches, but only one President. That President is not all powerful—not by any means,” Roberts wrote. “But he is not impotent either. He and he alone is vested with ‘[t]he executive Power’ of the United States.”
“To ‘discharg[e] the duties of his trust,’ the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust. Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people,” he added.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he has fired some Democrat-appointed members of independent agencies within the executive branch, but those firings were met with multiple lawsuits arguing he did not have the authority to do so. The Supreme Court partially weighed in on the legality of those firings twice before the Trump v. Slaughter case, twice allowing for firings to take place on their emergency docket while the lawsuits continued.
With Slaughter, the court again allowed the firing to take place in the interim but also elevated the case to its merits docket, leading to the Supreme Court’s full ruling on the matter.
During oral arguments in December, a majority of the justices appeared likely to side with the president on his ability to fire members of agencies created by Congress that exert executive branch power, such as the FTC. Several of the justices expressed concern during oral arguments that barring the president from firing these agency heads without cause would give them unlawful insulation from the president’s power as head of the executive branch.
SUPREME COURT GRAPPLES WITH HOW MUCH EXECUTIVE POWER INDEPENDENT AGENCIES REALLY EXERT
The president’s firing ability was also the topic of an emergency docket case for which the high court held arguments in January. In Trump v. Cook, Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook sued the president over his claims that he had fired her for cause over allegations of mortgage fraud. During arguments in that case, the justices seemed more skeptical of the president’s claims that he had shown sufficient cause, after previously noting the Fed is unique in its independence compared to other executive branch agencies.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.