


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted President Donald Trump’s petition for a stay of a district court order preventing him from firing Democrat Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
“The July 17, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 25–cv–909, ECF Doc. 52, is stayed,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion.
The 6-3 decision also granted a writ of certiorari before judgment, announcing that it will take up the broader topic of any president’s authority to fire members of agencies. It directs Trump and Slaughter appear before the high court in December to argue their positions on the matter.
At issue will be whether or not the Supreme Court should overrule its 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. United States decision that prevented Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt from firing a FTC commissioner. That decision ruled that commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty.
The Supreme Court will also examine whether “a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.”
“On top of granting certiorari before judgment in this case, the Court today issues a stay enabling the President to immediately discharge, without any cause, a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),” liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the dissenting opinion.
“That stay, granted on our emergency docket, is just the latest in a series,” Kagan wrote, noting that the Supreme Court has issued similar rulings this year allowing Pres. Trump to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merits Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Tuesday’s stay order allows Trump to remove “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all,” Kagan wrote.