WASHINGTON, D.C., June 29, 2026 – Today the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, voting 6–3 to allow President Trump to fire anybody he wants from independent agencies that Congress intentionally designed to be free of political influence. In doing so, the Court has overturned a 91-year-old precedent known as Humprey’s Executor, which protected such agencies from presidential interference. This transfers even more power to the president, which Trump will use to gut even more agencies that do important work to protect the American people.
“If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, the Court overrules it,” Chief Justice Roberts writes. Essentially eviscerating the concept of independent agencies protected from political meddling, Roberts insists that any officer performing an executive function must be fully under the president’s thumb. “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.” Once again, Roberts deems himself an anti-democratic kingmaker.
Writing for the dissenting liberals, Justice Sotomayor warns that this decision “gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.” It is “undeniable,” she writes,” that “agencies will be transformed in ways that those who created them never could have expected and actively sought to avoid, fundamentally recalibrating the balance of power in this country in the process.” She concludes: “In granting the President this unbridled authority, the Court upends its precedent, misconstrues our history, and sheds any pretense of judicial modesty.”
Alliance for Justice President Rachel Rossi issued the following statement:
“Today’s decision is the Supreme Court’s latest effort to give President Trump as much power as possible. Overturning 90 years of precedent upholding Congress’s authority to ensure that independent agencies can serve the American people free of political influence is a direct attack on its power to check runaway executive authority. We already know how desperate Trump is to gut agencies that hold him accountable and protect everyday Americans, including workers, consumers, and the media. In short, our authoritarian president was just handed the keys to be even more authoritarian, and the long-term consequences will no doubt be disastrous.”