SCOTUS 5-4 Rulings: Cook Stays at Fed, Slaughter Ousted from FTC as Precedent Overturned

For legal and regulatory professionals, the twin rulings represent a tectonic shift in administrative law. The Court’s decision to deny a stay in Cook’s case while simultaneously dismantling the Humphrey’s Executor shield for FTC commissioners creates a patchwork of removal protections that will demand meticulous statutory and constitutional analysis from litigators, compliance officers, and agency counsel.

In a pair of 5-4 rulings handed down on June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered a fractured yet consequential verdict on the scope of presidential removal power over members of independent federal agencies. The justices declined to halt a lower court order allowing Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook to remain in her post while she challenges President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her. Simultaneously, the Court ruled in Trump v. Slaughter that the President may remove Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission, directly overturning the 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Together, the decisions create a precarious new legal landscape: the executive branch gains immediate authority to dismiss commissioners of certain multi-member agencies, yet the Court has signaled it may not rubber-stamp removal of Fed governors, at least not without further litigation.

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The justices declined to halt a lower court order allowing Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook to remain in her post while she challenges President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.

The Cook case arises from President Trump’s effort to oust the Fed board member over allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook’s attorneys argued that the statutory for-cause removal protections for Federal Reserve governors foreclose presidential at-will dismissal. By refusing to stay the lower court’s ruling, the Supreme Court effectively preserved the status quo—allowing Cook to remain in office while the legal challenge proceeds—but did not resolve the underlying constitutional question. The narrow 5-4 vote underscores the ideological divide on the Court, with the majority apparently unwilling to short-circuit the litigation process in a case with broad implications for the Federal Reserve’s vaunted independence.

The Slaughter outcome, by contrast, delivers an unambiguous blow to statutory removal protections. In reversing and remanding the D.C. Circuit’s decision, the Supreme Court held that the FTC’s for-cause removal shield—rooted in the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor ruling—is unconstitutional. Humphrey’s Executor had long insulated FTC commissioners from presidential dismissal except for cause, carving out an exception to the unitary executive theory that otherwise vests removal power in the president. The Slaughter ruling marks the first time the Court has directly struck down that precedent, signaling that the current majority may be prepared to dismantle a cornerstone of administrative law. The decision to reverse and remand rather than issue a final mandate suggests the Court expects the lower courts to re-examine whether any other constitutional constraints limit the president’s power over FTC members.

The immediate impact is a dichotomy: the Fed—arguably the most critical independent agency for financial stability—retains its protections for now, while the FTC’s independence is severely curtailed. This split may reflect a strategic preference among some justices to dismantle the administrative state incrementally, starting with agencies perceived as less sacrosanct than the central bank. The rulings also inject uncertainty into other multi-member agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the National Labor Relations Board, all of which have removal protections rooted in Humphrey’s Executor or similar logic. Litigation challenging the independence of those bodies is virtually certain to follow.