Washington, D.C. – In a decisive win for presidential authority, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a 6-3 order allowing President Donald Trump to fire Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the last Democratic holdout on the antitrust watchdog agency. The ruling, which pauses a lower court reinstatement, sets the stage for a blockbuster December showdown over nearly a century of precedent shielding independent regulators from at-will dismissal.
Slaughter, a Biden renomination who Trump ousted in March without cause, sued arguing her removal violated the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. United States decision, which limits firings to inefficiency or malfeasance. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan agreed in July, ordering her back to work, a move upheld by the D.C. Circuit. But Chief Justice John Roberts’ emergency pause earlier this month held, and the full court now extends it, greenlighting her ouster while arguments loom on overturning Humphrey’s.
The conservative majority – Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett – offered no explanation, but Solicitor General D. John Sauer hailed it as affirming “the President’s core Article II powers.” Slaughter, whose term ran to 2029, becomes the latest casualty of Trump’s agency purge, joining ousted NLRB and CPSC Democrats. Her exit tips the FTC to a 3-1 Republican majority, potentially easing Big Tech mergers and deregulation.
Liberal justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented sharply. Kagan warned the order creates “chaos” by letting Trump sideline officials despite binding law, echoing her gripes in similar cases. “The majority is raring to upend Humphrey’s,” she wrote, fearing a politicized bureaucracy.
Trump crowed from the Oval Office: “Big victory – draining the swamp!” Attorney General Pam Bondi called it a “significant” blow to “unelected bureaucrats.” Critics, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, decried it as “executive overreach,” warning of eroded checks on power. Slaughter, in a statement, vowed to appeal: “Independence isn’t optional.”
As midterms heat up, the ruling turbocharges Trump’s retribution era, risking a seismic shift in over 50 agencies. For Slaughter, it’s a bitter end; for the court, a test of its conservative soul.
