On Monday, June 29, the Supreme Court issued two rulings on whether the president can fire a commissioner of an independent regulatory agency at will. Taking the two rulings together, the Court seems to be saying that when it’s a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, no he can’t, but when it’s a member of the Federal Trade Commission, yes he can.
The Federal Reserve case involved Lisa Cook (who, by the way, is Black). It needs to be remembered that Trump, right along, has been trying to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates more aggressively than they’ve voting to do. He tried to coerce former Fed chairman Jerome Powell with the threat of a criminal prosecution for imprecise statements he apparently made to Congress about some building renovation that was going overbudget, and in the case of Lisa Cook, his administration has been accusing her of mortgate fraud in connection with her ownership of certain property in Michigan and Georgia. What’s really involved, though, is that Trump wants the Federal Reserve Board to be dominated by individuals who will do exactly what he wants them to do.
Lisa Cook’s conflict with Trump is still unresolved. For one thing, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is still accusing her of mortgage fraud (story in The Hill, June 29, 2026). For another, her case against Trump is still playing out in a lower federal court. The main point of this ruling is that while that case plays out, she can stay on the Fed. The ruling seems to affirm the principle that the Fed needs to function independently and not be under the control fo the president. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, declared in Trump v. Cook, “Acceptance of the Government’s position would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
It’s different with the Federal Trade Commission. Here, the Court’s majority is allowing Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, not for cause (bad job performance), but for making decisions that Trump opposes ideologically. The decision reverses a precedent from the New Deal era, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to fire an FTC commissioner whose decisions weren’t friendly enough to the New Deal. In the Supreme Court case that resulted from that conflict, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Court ruled that the president can only fire a commissioner on the FTC for cause, not for policy differences, consistent with the statute that created the FTC. The Court has now reversed that rule.
Roberts wrote:
To “discharg[e] the duties of his trust,” the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust…. Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. 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.
This ruling would appear to sidestep a key point about regulatory bureaucracy: Commissioners on a regulatory panel do not “work with” the president. The president typically has no interaction with FTC commissioners. Like numerous other regulatory agencies, the FTC was created to carry out the will of Congress. For decades, it has been understood that regulatory agencies were supposed to act independently, not to be directly controlled by the president. But this ruling changes that. It’s also consistent with the notorious Project 2025, the Republican Party’s policy agenda, which puts great emphasis on a unitary executive branch, meaning the president’s control over all parts of the branch.
In both cases, the three Democratic appointees–Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson–voted against allowing Trump the power he desires, while four of the Republican appointees–Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett–were on Trump’s side. The two remaining conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, were the swing vote, being on Lisa Cook’s side in the Fed case and on Trump’s side in the FTC case. Roberts, as seen above, wrote both opinions.
Article at ScotusBlog on Trump v. Cook, June 29, 2026
Article at ScotusBlog on Trump v. Slaughter, June 29, 2026
Full text of Trump v. Cook decision, including the dissents