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What did the district court rule?
Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Slaughter’s motion for summary judgment and denied the government’s cross-motion on July 17, 2025. The court concluded that her removal did not comply with the FTC Act’s for-cause protection. The administration had said the commissioners’ continued service was inconsistent with its priorities, rather than identifying one of the statutory grounds for removal. Read the district court’s opinion.
The case was civil litigation over statutory removal protections and the constitutional division of executive power. It was not a criminal case, and the ruling was not a criminal conviction.
What changed at the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court stayed the district-court order while the case proceeded, allowing the removal to stand pending its decision. On June 29, 2026, the Court decided Trump v. Slaughter in Trump’s favor and returned the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court: “If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it.” Read the Supreme Court opinion.
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That outcome changed the governing legal framework. The 2025 judge had relied on Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 Supreme Court decision that upheld tenure protection for FTC commissioners. The 2026 majority held that presidential removal authority extends to executive officers and that Humphrey’s Executor could no longer support the FTC’s removal restriction. The district court’s ruling remains important to understanding the case’s history, but it should not be described as the final controlling decision.
Why did the courts reach different outcomes?
The district court applied the then-existing Supreme Court precedent and the FTC Act’s removal language. When the government sought to pause that ruling, the D.C. Circuit declined to grant a stay on September 2, 2025, reasoning that existing precedent supported the protection. The Supreme Court later granted a stay and agreed to hear the case before the D.C. Circuit completed its appeal. Read the D.C. Circuit’s stay order.
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On the merits, the Supreme Court majority focused on the FTC’s executive functions, including rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudication. It reasoned that the President must be able to control executive officers, and held that the old precedent could not preserve the removal restriction. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the majority departed from precedent and Congress’s judgment about agency independence. Those are competing legal interpretations, not a disagreement about what the FTC Act says.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What does the FTC Act say about commissioners?
Congress created the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 as a five-member commission. The FTC Act provides for staggered seven-year commissioner terms, limits how many commissioners may belong to one political party, and says a commissioner may be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Read the FTC Act.
The statutory text and its constitutional effect are separate questions. Congress wrote the for-cause removal language; the Supreme Court determined in 2026 that the constitutional rule it applied prevents that language from restricting the President’s removal authority in the way the district court had held.
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Key dates in the case
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| March 2025 | Trump removed FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. |
| July 17, 2025 | The district court ruled for Slaughter under the FTC Act’s for-cause removal protection. District court opinion. |
| September 2, 2025 | The D.C. Circuit declined to stay the district-court ruling. D.C. Circuit order. |
| 2025, before the merits decision | The Supreme Court stayed the district-court order and granted review before judgment, allowing the removal to stand while it considered the case. Supreme Court opinion and case materials. |
| June 29, 2026 | The Supreme Court ruled for Trump, overruled Humphrey’s Executor to the extent any of its former rule remained, and returned the case for further proceedings. Supreme Court opinion. |
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