Day 526
June 29, 2026
1 incident
- Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern Rule of Law
Supreme Court Overturns Humphrey's Executor, Lets Trump Fire FTC Commissioner — But Blocks Fed Governor Firing (June 2026)
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter that for-cause removal protections for FTC commissioners violate separation of powers, upholding Trump's 2025 firing of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and overturning the roughly 90-year-old Humphrey's Executor precedent — a ruling that strips independence from agencies structured like the FTC, potentially including the NLRB and MSPB. In a companion ruling issued the same day, the Court separately held that Trump lacks authority to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while her lawsuit proceeds, leaving the question of Fed removal power formally unresolved for now. Cook had been targeted based on a mortgage-fraud accusation from a Trump-appointed official that she says was pretextual retaliation for resisting political pressure on interest-rate policy.