The Trump administration hasn't been catching as many court-related breaks of late, with a number of adverse rulings in the lower courts. However, on Monday, the Supreme Court once again sided with the administration on the issue of the removal of "independent" agency leaders.
This is the second win for the administration in as many weeks in the case styled Slaughter v. Trump. On September 8, the court issued an administrative (temporary) stay of a district court order granting summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Rebecca Slaughter, who challenged her March 2025 removal as a commissioner from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Now, the court has formally granted the administration's application for stay (treating it like a petition for certiorari) and set oral argument for December.
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Slaughter and another commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, both filed suit to challenge their removal. However, in June, Bedoya notified the court he was resigning from his position as FTC commissioner so that he could pursue other (gainful) employment. In July, Judge Loren AliKhan (a Biden appointee) issued an order dismissing Bedoya's claims without prejudice (as moot) and granting summary judgment in favor of Slaughter and enjoining the defendants "from removing Ms. Slaughter from her lawful position as an FTC Commissioner or otherwise interfering with Ms. Slaughter’s right to perform her lawful duties as an FTC Commissioner until the expiration of her term or unless she is lawfully removed by the President for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 41."
The administration appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and sought a stay of Judge AliKhan's order. While the D.C. Circuit initially entered an administrative (temporary) stay, on September 2, it denied the administration's motion for stay pending appeal and ordered the administrative stay dissolved.
The administration then filed an application for stay with the Supreme Court on September 4, and the court then issued an order administratively staying the case, followed by today's ruling.
The Supreme Court on Monday backed President Donald Trump's decision to fire a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, sending yet another signal that the high court intends to revisit a 90-year-old court precedent about executive firing power.
The temporary decision to maintain Biden-appointed commissioner Rebecca Slaughter's termination was issued 6-3 along ideological lines. The Supreme Court set oral arguments in the case for December.
The court's order on the matter was brief and per curiam (by the court/unsigned), but Justice Elena Kagan penned a brief dissent, in which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.
Ahead of the December argument, the court instructed the parties to brief the following questions:
(1) Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), should be overruled.
(2) Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.
Along with its Monday ruling in Slaughter, the court denied the plaintiffs' petitions for certiorari before judgment in two companion/related cases: Harris v. Bessent (removal of Merit Systems Protection Board member) and Wilcox v. Trump (removal of National Labor Relations Board member).
Editor's Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump's agenda to make America great again.
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