Supreme Court allows Trump to oust FTC commissioner

The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump on Monday to remove Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Kelly Slaughter, further detailing that it would hear arguments in the case in December. With a final result of 6 votes in favor and 3 against, the high court's order came six months after Trump's decision to fire Slaughter and another of the FTC's commissioners named Alvaro Bedoya, who, like the commissioner, was a member of the Democratic Party, a fact that is not out of the ordinary for an agency that generally has three commissioners from the incumbent president's party and two from the opposing party.

Following his dismissal, both Slaughter and Bedoya announced they would challenge his dismissal in court, relying on a 1935 Supreme Court rulingin Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which also involved the dismissal of an FTC commissioner. In its order Monday, the high court noted that it would consider in December the broader question of whether or not to overrule that precedent, which has for the past 90 years represented an obstacle to executive powerover independent agencies.

After the Supreme Court's decision was made official, Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly celebrated the court's intervention via her X account. "Our attorneys at @TheJusticeDept just secured a significant Supreme Court victory protecting President Trump’s executive authority. In a 6-3 decision, the Court stayed a lower court ruling which prevented the President from firing a member of the FTC’s board. This helps affirm our argument that the President, not a lower court judge, has hiring and firing power over executive officials. We will continue fighting and winning in court to defend President Trump’s agenda" Bondi wrote.