Supreme Court Dismantles 91-Year-Old Precedent, Handing Trump Sweeping Power to Fire Independent Agency Heads

In a ruling that will reshape the balance of power in Washington for decades, the US Supreme Court on June 29 overturned a 91-year-old precedent that had prevented presidents from firing members of independent federal agencies at will. The 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, reported by NPR, CBS News, Bloomberg, and The Washington Post, found that President Trump's March 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was entirely lawful. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the conservative majority, formally overruled Humphrey's Executor v. United States — the 1935 New Deal-era decision that had allowed Congress to insulate multimember agencies from White House political interference. As Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, agencies that wield executive power must be ultimately answerable to the president.

The breadth of the ruling is difficult to overstate. According to The Hill, the decision stands to impact roughly two dozen multimember agencies across the federal government, covering vast swaths of American life including labour disputes, federal employee rights, workplace discrimination, credit union oversight, product safety recalls, and aviation accident investigation. Bloomberg reported that the ruling hands Trump sweeping power to bend much of the federal regulatory state to his will, enabling him to fire the heads of independent agencies that police markets, protect consumers, and enforce workplace rules. In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the president's hands.

The court drew a careful but contested line around the Federal Reserve. In a separate 5-4 ruling reported by PBS NewsHour, the court ruled that Fed Governor Lisa Cook could retain her position while litigation over her removal proceeds in the lower courts. Roberts reiterated in the FTC ruling that the decision does not implicate the constitutionality of the Fed's removal restrictions, and the court stressed it was leaving questions about tenure protections for judges on the US Tax Court for another day. The limited carve-out for the Fed provided some reassurance to global markets, which had been watching the case closely given the central bank's independence as a cornerstone of dollar credibility. The court's previous characterisation of the Fed as a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity following in a distinct historical tradition appeared to hold, at least for now.

President Trump greeted the ruling with undisguised jubilation, posting on Truth Social that the decision was the greatest increase in presidential power in the last 100 years and calling it a monumental ruling at a critical time. Critics from the legal and political left were swift in their condemnation. The Alliance for Justice noted that the decision voted six to three to allow the president to fire anybody he wants from independent agencies that Congress intentionally designed to be free of political influence. The ruling is the culmination of a years-long legal strategy pursued during both of Trump's terms, during which he fired independent agency heads across the government despite statutory protections, forcing the courts to ultimately reconsider the precedent that had constrained his authority.

The downstream consequences will be felt across Washington and well beyond it. Independent commissions that adjudicate labour grievances, regulate financial markets, and enforce antidiscrimination law will now operate under the knowledge that their members serve at the pleasure of the president. That dynamic fundamentally changes the incentive structures within those agencies, potentially softening enforcement decisions and tilting regulatory outcomes in favour of political incumbents. With midterm elections approaching in November and a Trump administration already seeking to reshape the administrative state, the ruling provides the White House with a powerful new tool to entrench its policy priorities across the bureaucracy. Whether Congress will attempt to respond legislatively — and whether any such effort could survive a veto — remains the most pressing institutional question now facing American governance.