US Supreme Court hands Trump 'greatest increase in presidential power' in 90 years. What can the POTUS do now?
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "US Supreme Court hands Trump 'greatest increase in presidential power' in 90 years. What can the POTUS do now?")
US President Donald Trump Photograph: (AFP)
The US Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump sweeping new authority to fire members of certain independent federal agencies, overturning key parts of a 90-year-old precedent that limited presidential control.
The US Supreme Court on Monday (Jun 29) handed President Donald Trump sweeping powers to fire members of certain independent agencies at will. The court ruled that job protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission are unconstitutional and swept aside a 90-year-old precedent that had allowed Congress to shield officials.
The decision gives the president far greater control over boards and commissions that were designed to function independently from the White House. And that, in practical terms, could change how a long list of federal agencies function. The case began with Rebecca Slaughter, an FTC commissioner whom Trump first appointed during his first term and who was later reappointed by President Joe Biden.
In March 2025, she was told her continued service was inconsistent with the Trump administration's priorities and was removed without cause. That clashed with the law that created the FTC in 1914, which says commissioners can be removed only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
Slaughter challenged the firing in court and won at the district court level. The appeals court in Washington later agreed she could remain in her post. But the Supreme Court stepped in last year and allowed Trump to remove her while the broader legal fight moved forward.
What the court said
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The ruling was 6 to 3. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, with the other conservative justices joining him. Roberts said officials who exercise executive power on the president's behalf must remain accountable to him, and that means they must be removable by him as well.
"Subordinates who exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him," Roberts wrote. "Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."
The court found that the modern FTC "unquestionably" exercises executive power, and therefore cannot be insulated from presidential control in the way Congress had intended.
Meanwhile, the three liberal justices dissented, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor even read a summary of her dissent from the bench, a sign of how sharply divided the court was.
What this means beyond the FTC
The decision is likely to ripple far beyond the trade commission. Congress has created more than two dozen multi-member agencies whose leaders can be removed only for cause, usually in cases of inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. Now, agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Labor Relations Board may face new pressure under the court's ruling.
In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor warned that the majority was effectively rewriting how government works.
"Put simply, today the majority reshapes our Government," she wrote. "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."
Trump lauds 'Greatest Increase in Presidential Power'
Trump, unsurprisingly, celebrated the ruling. He called it the "Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years. Such a Monumental Ruling at such an important time!".
