On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a watershed 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, overruling the 91-year-old precedent of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935). The case arose from President Donald Trump’s removal of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without alleging any statutory cause, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Court held that the FTC’s statutory for-cause removal protection violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, substantially expanding the President’s authority to remove the leaders of independent agencies at will.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts anchored the decision in the Constitution’s Executive Vesting Clause (Article II, §1) and Take Care Clause (Article II, §3), holding that executive power is indivisible and vested in a single President. Invoking The Federalist Papers, the Court reasoned that democratic accountability demands a strict administrative hierarchy: because the President alone bears responsibility for the execution of federal law, agency officers are merely “assistants or deputies” who must remain subject to his plenary superintendence and at-will removal.
The Dissent’s Warning
While some scholars have framed Slaughter as a victory for the unitary executive theory and a restoration of original constitutional design, the decision carries significant consequences for administrative adjudication. For-cause removal protections provide...
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