# The Supreme Court hands Trump almost royal power over the state

> Introduction: a Monday that changed the mechanics of American power

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-07-03
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/recit-la-cour-supreme-donne-a-trump-un-pouvoir-presque-royal-sur-letat

## Key takeaways

- In a 6-3 vote, the Court held that the president can dismiss FTC members at will, without cause, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts.
- The case began in March 2025, when Trump fired Democratic commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, and it overturned the 1935 precedent Humphrey's Executor v. United States.
- According to SCOTUSblog, the ruling affects roughly two dozen multi-member agencies.
- Justice Kagan's dissent warned that the president could remove any member "for any reason or no reason at all."
- The Court spared the Federal Reserve in a companion decision, Trump v. Cook, which the article calls a contradiction.

## Introduction: a Monday that changed the mechanics of American power

### A technical ruling with enormous consequences

On **June 29, 2026**, the **Supreme Court of the United States** issued a ruling that, behind the appearance of an obscure administrative case, deeply redraws the balance of power in Washington. In a **6-3** vote, the justices ruled in **Trump v. Slaughter** that the president can now dismiss members of the **Federal Trade Commission**, the **FTC**, at will, without having to invoke any legal cause whatsoever, according to the majority opinion written by Chief Justice **John Roberts** and published on the official **Supreme Court** website.

This ruling brings to a close a **judicial saga** that began in **March 2025**, when **Donald Trump** fired, without explanation, Democratic commissioner **Rebecca Slaughter** and her colleague **Alvaro Bedoya**, in apparent violation of a federal law protecting commissioners from arbitrary dismissal, as reported by **SCOTUSblog**.

### A narrative that begins with a contested dismissal

I choose to tell this story as a narrative because it has all the elements of an institutional drama: a woman appointed for seven years, fired without cause, who fights in court for more than a year, only to see the nation's highest court validate her dismissal and, in the process, demolish a **91-year-old** precedent.

That precedent is called **Humphrey's Executor v. United States**, decided in **1935**, a unanimous ruling that had allowed **Congress** to create so-called independent agencies, shielded from the political moods of the White House, according to **Wikipedia** and judicial archives cited by **Morgan Lewis**.

## The central figure: Rebecca Slaughter, ousted commissioner

### A career interrupted without warning

**Rebecca Slaughter** had sat on the **FTC** since **2018**, originally appointed under a different presidency, before being brutally removed in March 2025 by the **Trump** administration, without any of the legally required grounds — inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance — being invoked, according to **Wikipedia** and **NPR**.

A **federal district judge** had nonetheless restored her to her position as early as **July 2025**, a decision upheld by the **Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit**, before the **Supreme Court** stepped in to stay that reinstatement, according to court documents reviewed via the **D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals**.

### An unflinching public reaction

After the final ruling, **Slaughter** warned that the decision **"opens the door to abuse of presidential power,"** according to remarks reported by the **New York Times**, adding that presidents will now be able to remove regulators who put principle ahead of political interests and replace them with compliant figures.

She went further in a **televised interview**, calling the decision a **"massive transfer of power"** from Congress to the presidency, a conclusion I find hard to dispute given how the very language of the majority opinion enshrines an almost absolute vision of executive authority.

## The majority's argument: the unitary executive theory triumphs

### Roberts and the doctrine of total subordination

In his **36-page opinion**, Chief Justice **Roberts** wrote that **"the president cannot faithfully execute the laws if he cannot supervise those who execute them,"** a formulation that sums up the entire philosophy of the **unitary executive theory**, according to excerpts cited by **SHRM** and **SCOTUSblog**.

This **theory** holds that the president should be able to dismiss any member of the executive branch, including the heads of supposedly independent agencies, a constitutional vision that, if generalized, would considerably reduce Congress's role in designing oversight bodies shielded from partisan politics.

### Twenty-five federal agencies affected

The scope of this decision extends far beyond the **FTC** alone: according to **SCOTUSblog**, the ruling grants the president new authority over roughly **two dozen multi-member agencies** that Congress had intended to make independent, a figure that gives a sense of the scale of the institutional upheaval underway.

This shift potentially touches bodies as varied as the **National Labor Relations Board** or the **Consumer Product Safety Commission**, whose leaders had already been targeted by attempted presidential dismissals even before the Slaughter decision, according to historical background published by **SCOTUSblog**.

## Kagan's dissent: an unflinching warning

### "Any member, for any reason"

Justice **Elena Kagan**, joined by Justices **Sonia Sotomayor** and **Ketanji Brown Jackson**, had already warned as early as **September 2025**, in an interim order, that the majority **"has given the president complete control over all these agencies,"** who can now **"remove any member he wants, for any reason or no reason at all,"** according to the text of her dissent reviewed via the **Supreme Court**.

This dissenting prediction proved accurate when the final ruling came down in June 2026, confirming that overturning **Humphrey's Executor** would indeed wipe out the bipartisan independence Congress had sought to guarantee these commissions since **1935**.

### A notable exception for the Federal Reserve

Tellingly, the Court explicitly spared the leaders of the **Federal Reserve** in a companion decision, **Trump v. Cook**, handed down the same day, recognizing that political control of the central bank would threaten an **American tradition** of monetary management shielded from electoral pressures, according to **NPR** and **Morgan Lewis**.

This **selective exception**, in my view, illustrates an embarrassing contradiction: if institutional independence is deemed essential for monetary policy, why would it not be equally essential for consumer protection or the regulation of economic competition?

## The bigger picture: a presidency accumulating powers

### A string of court victories

This decision fits into an already well-established **trajectory**: as early as **2025**, the same conservative majority had allowed the president to dismiss without cause members of the **National Labor Relations Board** and the **Merit Systems Protection Board**, according to legal references recalled in **Kagan's** dissent and published by the **Supreme Court**.

Each of these decisions, taken in isolation, could seem technical and minor. Put end to end, they trace a coherent trajectory toward a presidency endowed with almost total control over the entire American federal regulatory apparatus.

### Senator Durbin sounds the alarm

Democratic Senator **Dick Durbin**, an influential member of the **Senate Judiciary Committee**, reacted by saying that **"this president can now fire anyone he perceives as his enemy in these agencies without even having to cite a cause,"** according to remarks cited by **CNBC**.

This concern, coming from a **seasoned lawmaker** rather than a mere partisan commentator, deserves to be taken seriously, as it underscores the legal vacuum now created around protecting federal officials from purely political retaliation.

## What this means for the West and its democratic credibility

### A signal sent to rival authoritarian regimes

For the **West**, which claims to embody a model of governance based on the separation of powers in contrast to regimes like **Vladimir Putin's** Russia or the **Chinese Communist Party**, this concentration of presidential power sends a contradictory and embarrassing signal on the international stage.

How can one seriously criticize **Beijing** or **Moscow** for the absence of **institutional checks and balances** when the free world's leading democracy is itself weakening, decision after decision, the mechanisms meant to limit the arbitrariness of its own executive?

### A fragility that benefits strategic adversaries

**China**, **Iran**, **Russia** and **North Korea** are closely watching every sign of American institutional weakening, seeking to exploit any perception of democratic dysfunction in their respective propaganda aimed at discrediting the Western model among their own populations.

I remain convinced that the West must remain the normative center of gravity of the free world, but that very conviction obliges me to criticize all the more forcefully decisions that weaken, from within, the credibility of this model against its authoritarian rivals.

## The Wilcox and Boyle precedent: a methodical preview

### A judicial strategy in successive steps

Even before the **Slaughter** case, the Court had already, through successive interim orders in **Trump v. Wilcox** and **Trump v. Boyle**, allowed the president to dismiss other independent agency heads, a method **Kagan** explicitly denounced as a gradual workaround of **Humphrey's Executor** without ever formally overturning it, until this June Monday.

This piecemeal approach, order after order, before the final blow, reveals a coherent judicial strategy that took less than two years to demolish a **91-year-old** precedent, a pace of constitutional change that should worry any observer attached to the stability of the law.

### The question that remains open for the future

It remains to be seen how this **new doctrine** will apply to other federal bodies, particularly those tasked with overseeing elections or guaranteeing the independence of certain investigations, gray areas the Court has not yet explicitly ruled on but which this decision now leaves far more vulnerable to direct presidential intervention.

I readily admit I do not know with certainty how far this logic will be extended in the coming years, nor whether a future Congress, Democratic or Republican, will one day attempt to legislate to restore some of the lost protections.

## The Trump administration's reaction: a victory claimed loudly

### A triumphant spokesperson

The **White House**, through spokesperson **Kush Desai**, had already stated even before the final ruling that **"President Trump acted within the bounds of the law"** in dismissing Slaughter, adding that the Supreme Court had **"already reaffirmed twice"** the president's power to remove executive agency heads, according to remarks reported by **CNBC**.

This rhetoric of a victory announced in advance, later confirmed by the judicial facts, illustrates the strategic confidence of the president's legal team, which clearly knew it could count on a majority of justices receptive to its vision of the unitary executive theory.

### Trump himself savors the decision

The **president** called this decision the **"biggest and most consequential"** handed down by the Court during his term, claiming it restored **"tremendous power"** to the American presidency, according to remarks made in a televised interview picked up by **Bloomberg**.

This public self-satisfaction, far from trivial, reveals just how much this legal victory serves as a centerpiece of his broader strategy to consolidate unprecedented executive control over the federal administrative apparatus.

## Dissenting voices in American civil society

### Consumer advocacy groups voice concern

Several **consumer rights organizations** have warned that weakening the **FTC's** independence could compromise its future ability to investigate major tech companies or sanction abusive business practices whenever such investigations would clash with the political or economic interests of the sitting executive.

These fears are not pure speculation: an agency whose commissioners know they can be fired overnight for displeasing the president will be structurally less inclined to pursue robust investigations against companies close to the executive branch.

### A precedent that worries people across partisan lines

Notably, **criticism** of this decision does not come solely from the Democratic camp: several **conservative legal scholars**, attached to a more traditional vision of the separation of powers, have also expressed reservations about the scale of the shift brought about by this decision, according to analyses published by law firms such as **Morgan Lewis**.

This cross-partisan concern should serve as a reminder that defending strong institutional checks and balances should never depend on the political color of the party currently in power, a lesson American history has already taught more than once.

## The future of so-called independent agencies after Slaughter

### A complete redefinition of administrative independence

The very concept of an **"independent agency,"** which has structured American administrative governance for nearly a century, must now be rethought in light of this decision, since protection against arbitrary dismissal was precisely the core of that institutional independence.

Without that protection, these agencies effectively become direct extensions of presidential will, capable of shifting political direction overnight simply through the replacement of their leaders, without any legislative debate or additional Senate confirmation process.

### A weakened Congress facing its own institutional creations

**Congress**, which had deliberately designed these multi-member, bipartisan commissions to shield them from immediate political pressure, now finds itself stripped of a fundamental legislative tool, without any new law having been passed to justify this radical shift in constitutional interpretation.

This **legislative dispossession**, carried out solely through the courts, illustrates a troubling dynamic in which the Supreme Court redraws the balance of power between branches of government without the people's elected representatives having been directly consulted on this change.

## The international dimension: comparisons with other democracies

### A contrast with European parliamentary models

In several **European parliamentary democracies**, economic regulatory authorities generally benefit from stronger institutional protections against direct interference from the executive branch, a model several comparative law experts consider more robust against temptations to concentrate power.

This **transatlantic divergence** deserves to be highlighted at a time when the **West** is trying to present a united front against authoritarian regimes: an American model increasingly centered on a strong executive contrasts with the institutional safeguards several European allies continue to fiercely defend.

### A lesson for fragile democracies elsewhere in the world

For **young democracies** still trying to consolidate their own independent institutions, particularly in **Eastern Europe** or in certain regions directly confronted with Russian influence, this American precedent could unfortunately serve as a convenient argument for leaders themselves tempted by the concentration of executive power.

It is precisely this kind of geopolitical domino effect that makes this American decision far more than a simple internal administrative dispute: it sends a potentially dangerous normative signal worldwide.

## The role of lower courts in this judicial saga

### Successive rulings overturned in a cascade

Before reaching the Supreme Court, the **Slaughter** case had a turbulent judicial journey: a **district judge** had ordered her reinstatement, a decision upheld on appeal by a panel of the **D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals** in a tight **2-1** vote, before the Supreme Court stepped in to stay and ultimately reverse these lower rulings.

This cascading reversal illustrates the ability of the country's highest court to overturn, as a final instance, decisions nonetheless issued by federal judges who had faithfully applied the existing precedent at the time of their respective rulings.

### A lesson in humility for legal scholars themselves

This **judicial journey** is also a reminder that even the most experienced legal scholars sometimes struggle to predict with certainty the final outcome of a major constitutional case, given how quickly the balance of power within the Supreme Court can shift with successive appointments and internal dynamics among justices.

I readily admit I do not have the legal training needed to anticipate with certainty all the future technical ramifications of this decision, but as an attentive observer, I can see the scale of the institutional paradigm shift it inaugurates.

## What this concretely changes for ordinary American citizens

### Potentially weakened regulatory protection

For the average **American consumer**, this decision could eventually mean **less vigorous investigations** into abusive business practices, anticompetitive mergers, or digital privacy protection, if future **FTC** commissioners know they risk immediate dismissal for disagreeing with the sitting executive.

This **dynamic** could particularly affect sensitive cases involving major tech companies with close political ties to the administration of the day, a scenario several consumer advocates already consider troubling.

### A precedent that extends far beyond the Trump term alone

It is essential to remember that this legal precedent will not apply only to the current administration: any **future president**, Democratic or Republican, will now inherit this same expanded power of arbitrary dismissal over all these federal agencies.

This **institutional permanence** of the precedent should prompt all citizens, regardless of their current partisan preferences, to seriously reflect on the long-term consequences of a federal executive stripped of historically well-established administrative checks and balances.

## The historical 1935 precedent deserves to be recalled in detail

### Franklin Roosevelt versus William Humphrey, the origin of the dispute

The founding **1935** case originates in the dismissal, by President **Franklin Delano Roosevelt**, of commissioner **William Humphrey**, a purely political disagreement tied to **New Deal** policies, according to historical background published by **Wikipedia** and cited in several contemporary legal analyses.

The Supreme Court of that era, in a unanimous decision written by Justice **George Sutherland**, had ruled that the **"quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial"** functions of the **FTC** justified protection against arbitrary dismissal, reasoning the current **Supreme Court** majority has now explicitly rejected as outdated.

### A century of administrative governance called into question

This complete reversal of reasoning that was nonetheless unanimous at the time illustrates how American constitutional interpretation can shift radically over the decades, following successive judicial appointments and changing ideological balances within the country's highest court.

This interpretive shift, however dizzying on a strictly legal level, will have very real consequences for millions of Americans who depend, often without realizing it, on the vigilance of these **federal agencies** for their daily protection against commercial and financial abuse.

## Conclusion: a turning point that calls for democratic vigilance

### A precedent that durably redefines Washington

This **Supreme Court** decision will stand as one of the most significant milestones of the **Trump** presidency in terms of constitutional redistribution of power, far beyond the individual case of **Rebecca Slaughter** and her turbulent tenure at the **FTC**.

History will record that the **Court**, through a coherent **conservative majority**, chose to sacrifice **91 years** of protective case law in the name of a maximalist vision of **executive power**, a decision whose institutional repercussions will be felt well beyond **2026**.

### Vigilance needed for the future of Western democracy

Facing strategic adversaries like **Russia**, **China**, **Iran** and **North Korea**, who are only waiting for a pretext to discredit the Western democratic model, American citizens and their allies must remain especially vigilant against any excessive concentration of executive power, no matter who wields it.

This judicial narrative, however technical it may seem at first glance, deserves to be told and widely understood, because it directly touches the future ability of American citizens to hold their leaders accountable.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Supreme Court of the United States — Trump v. Slaughter, full opinion, June 29, 2026](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf)

- [SCOTUSblog — Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power, June 30, 2026](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-allows-trump-to-fire-ftc-commissioner-and-overturns-major-restraint-on-presidential-power/)

### Secondary sources

- [Devdiscourse — Supreme Court expands presidential powers with landmark FTC ruling, June 29, 2026](https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/3942418-supreme-court-expands-presidential-powers-with-landmark-ftc-ruling?amp)

- [CBS News — Supreme Court, Trump and the expansion of presidential power, June 29, 2026](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship-tariffs-presidential-power/)

- [CNBC — Supreme Court lets Trump fire FTC member, boosts presidential power, June 29, 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/29/supreme-court-trump-slaughter-ftc.html)

- [NPR — Supreme Court cements Trump's power over independent agencies, June 29, 2026](https://www.npr.org/2026/06/29/nx-s1-5816232/supreme-court-ftc-independent-agencies-humphreys-executor)

- [The New York Times — Fired FTC commissioner warns of potential for presidential abuse of power, June 29, 2026](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/us/politics/supreme-court-ftc-rebecca-slaughter.html)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/recit-la-cour-supreme-donne-a-trump-un-pouvoir-presque-royal-sur-letat