Argued December 8, 2025; decided June 29, 2026, on certiorari before judgment to the D.C. Circuit (No. 25-332). See Trump v. Slaughter.
Posture
The FTC's powers "belong not to the President or his appointees alone, but instead to five Commissioners, each of whom serves for seven years and may be removed by the President only 'for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.' 15 U.S.C. §41."
Soon after beginning his second term in January 2025, President Trump fired the FTC's two Democratic appointees, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. He identified no statutory cause, telling them their "continued service on the FTC [was] inconsistent with [his] Administration's priorities" and that removal was "pursuant to [his] authority under Article II of the Constitution."
The District Court granted Slaughter summary judgment, acknowledging that Myers v. United States generally permits at-will removal of executive officers but holding that Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, "carved out an exception for the FTC." It declared the removal ultra vires and permanently enjoined interference with "Ms. Slaughter's right to perform her lawful duties." A divided D.C. Circuit denied a stay; the Supreme Court stayed the District Court's order and granted certiorari before judgment.
Holding
"The FTC's for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution." Reversed and remanded.
The reasoning proceeds from Article II's vesting of "[t]he executive Power" in "a President of the United States of America" and the Take Care Clause. Vesting executive power in one person "was to establish a hierarchy — a 'Chief Magistrate' with whom the buck stops, and below him various 'assistants or deputies' who 'derive their offices from his appointment' and remain 'subject to his superintendence,'" quoting Federalist No. 72. From which: "To remain accountable to the President, those officers must be removable by the President."
The opinion is careful that the outcome was contingent historically — "The idea that one President would be in charge was by no means a foregone conclusion in 1787" — and works through the founding-era alternatives before reaching its conclusion.
Overruling Humphrey's Executor
The Court first narrows Humphrey's on its own terms, noting its premise that an agency "exercises no part of the executive power" — which the modern FTC, with "vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory powers," does not satisfy. Then: "If anything more is left of Humphrey's, the Court overrules it."
The stare decisis analysis is stated bluntly: "Humphrey's has for decades been a result in search of a rationale, and every relevant factor to stare decisis — the 'quality' of the decision's reasoning, its 'consistency' with the Court's other cases, the 'workability' of its rule, and reliance interests — counsels in favor of letting Humphrey's go."
On reliance the Court inverts the argument. Slaughter argued Congress had relied on Humphrey's to create agencies "insulated from presidential control." The response: "But that is precisely the problem. Despite what Humphrey's may say, independent agencies are not 'independent' in the sense that they are free of the President and thus responsive 'only to the people of the United States.'" Officers with "freedom from Presidential oversight (and protection)" are, on this account, less accountable rather than more.
The closing formulation: officers who "exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."
Lineup
Roberts, C.J., delivered the opinion, joined by Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, and by Thomas as to all but Part III-B. Gorsuch, J., filed a concurrence. Sotomayor, J., dissented, joined by Kagan and Jackson.
Thomas's partial withholding from Part III-B — the stare decisis discussion — is the notable split within the majority: agreement on the outcome without full endorsement of the reasoning for discarding precedent.
Bearing on AI governance
The decision does not concern AI, but it removes the constitutional footing for the independent-agency form that most AI-regulatory proposals assume. Frameworks that vest evaluation, licensing, or deployment-blocking authority in an insulated expert agency — including the Agency contemplated in Anthropic's Advanced AI Framework and the FINRA-modelled bodies discussed elsewhere — now face the question of whether such a body can be structured to survive at-will presidential removal, or must be designed on the assumption that it cannot. See Frontier AI Governance, Risk-Based AI Regulation.
Relationships
- supports: Trump v. Slaughter — the primary text behind that page
- related: Frontier AI Governance — bears on the viability of independent-agency designs for frontier oversight
- related: Anthropic's Advanced AI Framework (June 2026), Risk-Based AI Regulation, Federal Trade Commission (FTC)