Supreme Court Set to Hand Trump Power to Fire Anyone, Anytime

The Roberts Court is about to hand the president a tool that no American chief executive has ever possessed: the constitutional authority to fire any government worker at will.

"This is a choice—an illegitimate one—not a necessity or requirement of the law, no matter what John Roberts and his fellow Republican appointees on the Supreme Court may claim."

— Lisa Graves, legal investigative researcher and Chief Justice Roberts biographer

The Federal Trade Commission once had five commissioners. After Donald Trump fired two of them last year, it has three. The two he removed were Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the agency's Democratic appointees. He gave no cause for their dismissal beyond a blanket statement that their service was "inconsistent with Administration priorities."

Under a 1935 Supreme Court precedent called Humphrey's Executor v. United States, that firing was unlawful. The case established that presidents cannot fire commissioners of independent agencies without good cause. It was designed to shield regulators from political pressure so they could make decisions based on evidence rather than loyalty.

Later this month, the Roberts Court will hear Trump v. Slaughter. Legal experts say the conservative majority is poised to overturn Humphrey's Executor and declare that all executive power "vests" in the president, giving him the right to fire anyone in the executive branch at any time for any reason or no reason at all.

Translation: a century-old guardrail against presidential overreach is about to become an exhibit in the history of what used to exist.

The case reached the Supreme Court through one of the court's most controversial tools: the shadow docket. After lower courts initially reinstated Slaughter, finding her firing violated established precedent, SCOTUS intervened behind closed doors to keep her off the commission while the case proceeded. No public hearing. No full briefing. Just an order from six conservative justices that effectively rubber-stamped Trump's removal of a sitting commissioner.

Lisa Graves, who wrote a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts titled "Without Precedent," warns the upcoming ruling will be dressed up in constitutional language but amount to something far more blunt. She calls it "an extraordinary power grab" disguised as separation of powers doctrine.

The legal theory driving this is called the unitary executive. It argues that Article II of the Constitution vests all executive authority in a single person and that any attempt to limit presidential control over executive branch employees is unconstitutional. The theory has been developed for decades by the Federalist Society, the same organization that handpicked most of the current conservative justices.

The Federalist Society spent thirty years building this moment. Now it's happening.

The consequences are already visible. Since Slaughter and Bedoya were fired, the FTC has dropped more than three dozen merger investigations. Among them: Google's $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity startup Wiz, a deal that would have faced serious scrutiny under the previous commission. The agency that was supposed to police corporate consolidation is now staffed by commissioners who answer directly to the president who benefits from deregulation.

This is not an isolated case. If Humphrey's Executor falls, the precedent extends beyond the FTC. It applies to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and every other independent agency whose commissioners currently enjoy for-cause removal protections.

A ruling in Trump's favor would mean any future president could purge these agencies of anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Independent regulators would become political appointees in everything but name.

The architects of this theory never pretended they were protecting democracy. They were building a weapon, and they've been waiting for the right court to fire it.

The broader implications stretch far beyond any single administration. A president who can fire FTC commissioners at will can also fire SEC chairmen who pursue enforcement actions against their donors. A president who can remove Federal Reserve governors can pressure interest rate decisions. A president who can dismiss Consumer Product Safety commissioners can shield companies from recalls.

Each of these agencies was structured as independent precisely because the framers of their enabling legislation recognized that some functions require insulation from political pressure. Drug safety reviews should not depend on whether a pharmaceutical company donated to a campaign. Antitrust enforcement should not hinge on whether a merger benefits the president's business interests. Labor protections should not disappear because a new administration prefers a more compliant workforce.

Humphrey's Executor was the legal embodiment of that insight. Overturning it doesn't just expand presidential power. It dismantles the structural assumption that some government functions must operate independently of whoever occupies the Oval Office.

The case also reveals something about the Roberts Court itself. John Roberts spent years cultivating an image as a centrist institutionalist, the justice who cared above all about the court's legitimacy. He wrote the majority opinion in upholding the Affordable Care Act in 2012. He dissented from partisan decisions on voting rights and campaign finance.

Graves' biography argues this was always a performance. She documents how Roberts systematically aligned with his conservative colleagues across dozens of cases, reshaping constitutional law to serve corporate interests while maintaining plausible deniability through carefully worded opinions. Trump v. Slaughter fits the pattern: a ruling that expands executive power in ways that benefit the president who appointed him, wrapped in language about constitutional separation of powers.

The question isn't whether this was corrupt. The question is why anyone was surprised.

supreme court, trump, executive power, ftc