Nadia Dreid
December 26, 2025
FTC Dem Tells Justices Case Law Supports Her Reinstatement
2 min
AI-made summary
- Rebecca Slaughter, a former Federal Trade Commissioner, has filed a brief with the U.S
- Supreme Court challenging her removal by President Donald Trump before her term ended
- Slaughter argues that the case raises significant constitutional questions about presidential authority and the legality of independent agencies
- The D.C
- Circuit previously ruled in her favor, finding the president violated a law requiring FTC commissioners be removed only for cause
- The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December.
Fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter has argued that in taking up her appeal over President Donald Trump's decision to remove her before her term was up, the U.S. Supreme Court is really mulling whether it has "gotten it wrong for the last 90 years."
Slaughter told the justices in a brief filed Friday that her appeal raises "momentous questions" of whether the president broke the law or whether Congress has "violated the Constitution some two-dozen times over the last 150 years" by creating multimember independent agencies.
"In approving those agencies and commissioning their officers, have presidents of both parties consistently supported 'clear' invasions of an 'indispensable' presidential power?" Slaughter asked. "And in blessing removal protections for traditional multimember agencies — first in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, and then, time and again, in succeeding cases involving the constitutionality of such protections — has this court gotten it wrong for the last 90 years?"
According to the filing, the answer to those questions are "no, no and no."
"All three branches of government have not collectively and protractedly labored in error," Slaughter said in her first brief since the high court granted a writ of certiorari in her case back in September.
The FTC is currently staffed only by Republicans following Trump's firing of the two remaining Democratic commissioners in March. Slaughter quickly took the firing to D.C. federal court, and the court found in July that the president violated a law that says FTC members could only be removed from their positions for cause.
The Trump administration quickly appealed, telling the D.C. Circuit the order doesn't mesh with recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions staying similar orders reinstating two fired members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The D.C. Circuit sided with Slaughter, and now the matter is before the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments in December.
Trump is represented by D. John Sauer, Sarah M. Harris and Vivek Suri of the U.S. Solicitor General's Office, Brett A. Shumate, Eric D. McArthur, Mark R. Freeman, Michael S. Raab, Daniel Aguilar and Laura E. Myron of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division, and Lucas Croslow and Alex Potapov of the Federal Trade Commission.
Slaughter is represented by Amit Agarwal, Beau Tremitiere and Benjamin L. Berwick of the Protect Democracy Project, Aaron H. Crowell, Gregory A. Clarick and David Kimball-Stanley of Clarick Gueron Reisbaum LLP, and Laurence M. Schwartztol of Harvard Law School's Democracy and Rule of Law Clinic.
The case is Trump et al. v. Slaughter, case number 25-332, in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Article Author
Nadia Dreid
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