{"id":281,"date":"2026-06-29T15:10:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=281"},"modified":"2026-06-29T15:10:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:10:04","slug":"court-allows-trump-to-fire-ftc-commissioner-and-overturns-major-restraint-on-presidential-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. By a vote of 6-3, the justices  a federal law that bars the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission except in cases of \u201cinefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.\u201d That law, a majority of the justices ruled, violates the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. And in reaching that decision, the court overruled its 91-year-old decision in , which had upheld the law at the center of the dispute.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=279\">Supreme Court will not consider $5 million verdict against Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More broadly, Monday\u2019s decision was a major victory for proponents of the \u201cunitary executive\u201d theory\u00a0\u2013 the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and laws \u2013 like the one that the court struck down \u2013 that restrict his ability to do so violate the separation of powers.\u00a0Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts contended that \u201cthe 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 <em>prefer<\/em> to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he <em>cannot<\/em> work. Subordinates who exercise the President\u2019s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a 49-page dissent that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. \u201cToday,\u201d she wrote, \u201cthe Court discards\u201d the \u201cdemocratic regime\u201d created by the Constitution \u201cin favor of one that distorts the structure of Government to fit the majority\u2019s theory of unitary, total executive control. The result,\u201d she concluded, \u201cis a President who emerges with far greater power than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission\u00a0was created more than a century ago. It has five commissioners, no more than three of whom may come from any one political party. Each commissioner is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve a seven-year term.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=277\">The home stretch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>During his first term in office, Trump nominated Rebecca Slaughter to fill one of the Democratic seats on the FTC. Then-President Joe Biden renominated her in 2023 to serve a second term. Last year, the White House notified Slaughter in a letter that she had been \u201cremoved from the Federal Trade Commission, effective immediately.\u201d The letter did not cite any of the legal grounds that would allow Trump to fire her. Instead, Trump told Slaughter that allowing her to remain on the FTC would be \u201cinconsistent with my Administration\u2019s priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Slaughter went to federal court in Washington, D.C., to challenge her firing. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan \u00a0the Trump administration to reinstate her, and a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\u00a0 the government\u2019s request to pause that ruling while it appealed. Judges Patricia Millett and Nina Pillard wrote that only the Supreme Court could overturn its decision in <em>Humphrey\u2019s Executor<\/em>, which in their view was \u201ccontrolling\u201d in Slaughter\u2019s case.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration then went to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to freeze AliKhan\u2019s order while litigation continued. Over a dissent by Kagan, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, the court  \u2013 effectively permitting Trump to fire Slaughter \u2013 and set the case for oral argument in December.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=275\">Announcement of opinions for Monday, June 29<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. By a vote of 6-3, the justices a federal law that bars the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission except in cases of \u201cinefficiency, neglect of duty, or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-analysis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=281\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. 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