The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter overrules Humphrey's Executor and gives the president at-will removal power over all independent agency heads.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 29, 2026, that the president holds plenary authority to fire members of multi-member independent agencies, overruling the 91-year-old precedent set in *Humphrey's Executor v. United States* [1]. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, which struck down the statutory provision shielding Federal Trade Commission commissioners from at-will removal [1]. The decision resolves a direct challenge brought after President Trump terminated FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter [2].
The case, *Trump v. Slaughter*, arose from Slaughter's removal and her subsequent legal challenge to it [1]. The Court's ruling came in its final opinions of the October 2025 term, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor authoring a dissent for the three-justice minority [1]. The case presented the Court with its most direct confrontation of *Humphrey's Executor* since that 1935 decision established that Congress could insulate agency commissioners from presidential removal except for cause [2].
The substantive reach of the ruling extends well beyond the FTC. Roughly two dozen federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Communications Commission, were structured by Congress under the assumption that *Humphrey's Executor* remained good law [2]. Those statutory removal protections are now constitutionally unenforceable. The decision represents the most significant expansion of executive authority since the Court's 2024 presidential immunity ruling, dismantling the legal architecture that has defined independent agency governance for nearly a century [1]. The majority grounded its holding in the unitary executive theory, which holds that Article II vests all executive power in the president and does not permit Congress to carve out removal-proof subordinate officers [1] [2].
Immediate consequences are expected across the regulatory landscape. Agency commissioners at institutions not yet subject to direct presidential removal orders now face diminished legal protection, and ongoing enforcement actions at agencies including the FTC could face leadership disruption [2]. Congressional Democrats and affected agency officials are expected to press for legislative responses, though any such statute would face the same constitutional infirmity the Court identified today [1]. Litigation challenging specific removal actions at other agencies is likely to follow, testing how quickly and broadly the executive branch moves to assert the removal authority the Court has now confirmed [2].