US supreme court rules Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies

The US supreme court ruled that Donald Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies or commissions, ending 90 years of court precedent that curbs executive power. The vote in the case of Trump v Slaughter is 6-3, with dissents from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. The case was focused on the White House’s March 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. Trump fired Slaughter over email, telling her that keeping her as a commissioner would be “inconsistent with [the] administration’s priorities”. Upon her termination, Slaughter sued the Trump administration, saying she was fired without cause, and a lower court ruled for her reinstatement. In challenging Slaughter’s suit, the White House argued the court should overturn Humphrey’s Executor v United States, a landmark ruling from 1935 where the supreme court ruled that the president unlawfully fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), limiting the president’s power over independent agencies. “Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong,” wrote Sotomayor in her dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson. …