The Supreme Court ultimately sided with President Donald Trump: on June 29, 2026, it ruled 6–3 that the law protecting Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from removal without cause violated the Constitution, and it overruled a 1935 precedent that had upheld that protection. That final ruling came months after Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused a lower-court order restoring Slaughter; the 2025 pause was not itself a decision on the legal merits.
What happened, and when?
The dispute turned on whether the President could remove an FTC commissioner without citing one of the specific grounds in the FTC Act. The Act said commissioners could be removed only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Supreme Court’s opinion says Trump did not identify one of those causes for Slaughter, instead invoking administration priorities and Article II, which vests executive power in the President.
| Date and event | What it meant |
|---|---|
| March 2025: Trump removed Slaughter and fellow Democratic commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. | The Supreme Court case concerned Slaughter. Bedoya later resigned, and his claims became moot, according to the Court’s 2026 opinion. |
| September 8, 2025: Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily stayed the lower-court judgment that had restored Slaughter. | The stay paused that judgment while the Supreme Court considered further proceedings. It did not decide whether the firing was lawful. Ars Technica’s contemporaneous report said the Court had not yet ruled on the merits. |
| June 29, 2026: The Supreme Court decided Trump v. Slaughter 6–3. | The Court held the FTC’s for-cause removal protection unconstitutional and overruled Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. |
What did the Supreme Court decide?
The Court’s holding was specific to the FTC Act’s restriction on removing FTC commissioners. The Court’s syllabus states: “The FTC’s for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.” The majority reasoned that the restriction improperly limited the President’s authority over executive power. It therefore rejected the 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor, which had upheld Congress’s ability to restrict the President’s removal of FTC commissioners.
That is the majority’s constitutional interpretation, not a point on which the Court was unanimous. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The dissent rejected the majority’s view of presidential power and congressional authority to protect agency independence.
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Why did the 2025 Supreme Court action look different?
Roberts’s September 2025 stay was an interim procedural order. It temporarily blocked the lower-court judgment requiring that Slaughter be allowed to perform her duties; it did not determine the constitutionality of the FTC Act or finally resolve her case. The June 2026 decision was the merits ruling: it answered the constitutional question and changed the precedent governing FTC commissioners.
Does the ruling mean the President can remove every independent-agency official at will?
No. The Supreme Court decided the FTC question in Trump v. Slaughter; it did not announce a single outcome for every commission or agency. The Congressional Research Service says similar removal protections at other commission-style agencies may be at risk, but the ruling’s broader effects are difficult to predict. The Washington Post characterized the potentially affected reach as “roughly two dozen” agencies; that is a journalistic estimate, not a number announced by the Court.
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The distinction is underscored by a separate decision on the same day. In Trump v. Cook, the Court preserved for-cause removal protections for Federal Reserve Board governors. The Fed result was a separate case and should not be treated as something decided by the FTC ruling itself.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the decision means for the FTC
The FTC has five commissioners, each serving a seven-year term under the statutory framework described in the Supreme Court opinion. The Court’s ruling removes the specific statutory barrier to a President removing an FTC commissioner without proving inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. It does not, by itself, determine how every future dispute about another agency’s removal protections will be resolved.
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For the public, the institutional question is how much independence Congress can give regulators from presidential control. Slaughter, quoted by The Washington Post after the ruling, said the result reflected “a massive expansion of executive power at the expense of Congress.” Solicitor General D. John Sauer, quoted in the same report, had described agencies such as the FTC as “a headless fourth branch insulated from political accountability and democratic control.” Those statements capture the opposing policy arguments; the binding legal result is the Court’s holding about the FTC provision.
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