Supreme Court lets Trump fire FTC member, boosts presidential power

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that President Donald Trump did have the authority to fire Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

The 6-3 ruling gives Trump and future presidents the power to remove members of supposedly independent federal agencies that carry out functions under the executive branch of government.

The majority, comprised of all six conservative justices, found that the FTC’s provision that commissioners could be removed by a president only for cause “is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.”

“Independent agencies are not so independent after all,” conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion to the majority decision.

The ruling effectively overturns a key Supreme Court precedent known as “Humphrey’s Executor,” which had served as a protection for members of independent agencies from firing by a president.

Trump, in a Truth Social post on the ruling, called it a “BIG WIN.”

“This Decision was long sought by United States Presidents, dating all the way back to the 1930s,” Trump wrote. “It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers.”

At the White House later, Trump was asked if he expected to fire more people as a result of the ruling.

“I don’t think so,” Trump told reporters. “It gives me the right, and not me, it gives a president the right to do what the president should have the right to do, and it’s very interesting. It’s a big ruling.”

Slaughter, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” said she was “disappointed in the ruling.”

“I think what matters is exactly what President Trump said: it is unprecedented and it takes a massive amount of power away from Congress, and to the president to shape economic decision-making in a way that will reward the rich and powerful, and at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

Slaughter said that as a result of the ruling, FTC policy will “unquestionably” become more political.

“And political isn’t even the only problem,” she said. “The problem is where it becomes something that rewards political and campaign contributions, friends and allies of the president, rather than being decisions that are made on the merits.”

Slaughter added, “And for honest businesses, that should be very concerning.”

Trump in March 2025 fired Slaughter and another Democratic commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, without citing any cause, but instead saying that their remaining on the FTC would be inconsistent with his administration’s priorities.

Slaughter and Bedoya then sued Trump, seeking reinstatement. But Bedoya resigned from the FTC in June 2025 and dropped his case as Slaughter’s continued.

“The President may remove his subordinates at will,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in the majority opinion on Monday that he authored.

“The FTC unquestionably exercises executive power, and must therefore be controlled by the Chief Executive,” Roberts said.

But the chief justice also pointedly carved out a possible exemption for members of the Federal Reserve from being fired by a president.

Trump last year tried to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. But the Supreme Court in a separate ruling on Monday said she could remain on the job pending the outcome of her lawsuit challenging her termination, which will play out in a federal district court.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether the president has the power to fire Cook or any other Fed board member.

“Our opinion [in Slaughter’s case] today should not be read” as affecting the structure of the Federal Reserve, Roberts wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal justice, blasted the Slaughter ruling in a scathing dissent, saying that, “perhaps worst of all, the Court today forgets its place,” and that “the majority reshapes our Government.”

“Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice,” Sotomayor wrote.

“The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted,” she wrote, “This case should have begun and ended with this Court’s unanimous decision from almost a century ago: Humphrey’s Executor.”

Trump, in another Truth Social post on the ruling, wrote, “To show the importance of the Slaughter Case, 90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed!”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a statement, said, “The Supreme Court just overturned well-established precedent to greenlight Donald Trump’s threats to independent federal agencies.”

“Now, this President can fire whomever he perceives as his enemy at these agencies without so much as citing cause,” said Durbin, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“This ruling is an affront to good governance and the point of ‘independent’ federal agencies in the first place.”