On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in the case of Trump v. Slaughter that the president may remove a leader of a multi-person independent agency for reasons other than those enumerated in statute. The Court upheld President Donald Trump's (R) 2025 dismissal of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, ruling that the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 unconstitutionally restricted presidential power by limiting the reasons for which a commissioner could be dismissed.
The ruling overturned the 1935 precedent of Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which had identified the reasons enumerated in the Act – "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office" – as the only valid reasons for presidential dismissal of an FTC commissioner. In subsequent jurisprudence, the Humphrey's Executor precedent limited presidential power to remove leaders of multi-member independent agencies to the reasons the U.S. Congress enumerates in statute.
There are approximately 80 federal agencies that demonstrate characteristics of independent federal agencies, which are executive agencies established by statute outside the Executive Office of the President and the 15 executive departments led by cabinet secretaries. Independent agencies have historically defined their independence partly by their protection from presidential removal. A 2012 report from the Administrative Conference of the United States — an independent agency itself — described cause removal protections for agency leaders as meaning "independence from political interference, particularly removal by the President." The Trump v. Slaughter decision rejects this definition.
