U.S. Supreme Court Allows President To Remove FTC Commissioners

On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Trump v. Slaughter, a highly anticipated case addressing the President’s authority to remove Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission. In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that the Commissioners’ for-cause removal protections are unconstitutional and that the President can remove the Commissioners at will.¹ Below, we provide background on the case, explain the Court’s reasoning, and examine the potential impact on the FTC.

Trump v. Slaughter Background

Pursuant to the FTC Act, the FTC is overseen by up to five Commissioners, no more than three of whom can be members of the same political party. The FTC Act further provides that Commissioners serve for seven-year terms – after the expiration of which they may continue serving until the Senate confirms the nomination of a replacement – and that they are only removable by the President for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Former FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter served on the Commission until she and fellow Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya were removed by President Trump in March 2025. President Trump’s removal notice indicated that they were removed because continued service was “inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.”

Both brought suit to restore their positions on the Commission, and after Bedoya voluntarily resigned and was dismissed from the case, the District Court held that Slaughter’s removal was unlawful, and that she was entitled to a permanent injunction to restore her to her position. The Supreme Court stayed the injunction and granted a writ of certiorari to hear the case.

The question of whether the President may fire FTC Commissioners was first addressed by the Supreme Court over 90 years ago, in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In that case, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the FTC Act’s removal protections were constitutional and that the President could not fire FTC Commissioners at will because the commissioners’ duties were “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”²

The Supreme Court’s Slaughter Opinion

In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court addressed the question of whether the statutory removal protections for FTC Commissioners violate the separation of powers under the U.S. Constitution, and correspondingly whether Humphrey’s Executor should be overruled.³

The Court first held that the FTC Commissioners’ for-cause removal protections violated the separation of powers and that President Trump could lawfully remove Commissioners at will. The Court reasoned that all officials who exercise executive power within the President’s “general administrative control” must be removable by the President at will.⁴ The Court found FTC Commissioners to be subject to at-will removal because the FTC “unquestionably” exercises executive power by adjudicating statutory violations in-house, issuing substantive rules, and filing civil suits in federal court.⁵

The Court also overruled Humphrey’s Executor. It reasoned that, even in the 1930s, FTC Commissioners exercised executive power sufficient to permit at-will removal.⁶ The Court noted that “all that is left” of Humphrey’s is the proposition that an agency that exercises no executive power need not be subject to Presidential removal.⁷ Thus, the Court stated, if “anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it.”⁸

Slaughter’s Impact on the FTC Going Forward

The FTC currently operates with a 2-0 Republican majority under Chairman Andrew Ferguson, which will likely remain the operational structure following the Slaughter decision. Going forward, with Presidents of either political party able to remove FTC Commissioners at will, it remains to be seen whether the Commission will return to a bipartisan structure. In previous years, FTC Commissioners have often reached bipartisan agreements on both enforcement actions and rulemakings. Companies dealing with the FTC and the broad range of laws it enforces should closely monitor developments in how the FTC may operate going forward.

Wiley’s FTC and Consumer Protection and TMT Appellate practices can assist with any questions related to the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision. For more information about these issues, please contact the attorneys listed on this alert.

Adam Hilu, a Summer Associate at Wiley Rein LLP, contributed to this alert.

Footnotes

1. Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, slip op. at 27 (U.S. June 29, 2026).

2. Humphrey’s Ex’r v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 624 (1935).

3. Trump v. Slaughter, 146 S. Ct. 18, 18 (2025).

4. Slaughter, slip op. at 28 (citation omitted).

5. Id. at 25–27.

6. Id. at 21.

7. Id.

8. Id. (emphasis in original). In an opinion released contemporaneously with Slaughter, a different majority reasoned that the removal protections enjoyed by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve are consistent with the Constitution. Trump v. Cook, No. 25A312, slip op. at 22–23 (U.S. June 29, 2026).

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