This week, the Supreme Court signaled it may deliver one of the most consequential rulings on presidential power in nearly a century. At stake is the potential overturn of a 1935 precedent that created the modern “independent agency” structure and limited the president’s ability to remove top federal officials.
During Monday’s oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, several justices questioned whether the decades-old ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States — which shields leaders of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from direct presidential control — is constitutional.
The case began when President Donald Trump removed an FTC commissioner without cause, challenging the long-standing protections that had insulated agency leaders from the White House.
A ruling in Trump’s favor could dismantle what legal conservatives often call the “fourth branch of government”: a network of powerful, unelected bureaucrats who operate largely beyond voter control.
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