SCOTUS: Except for Federal Reserve Board, For-Cause Removal Provisions Governing Independent Agencies Are Unconstitutional
In Short
The Situation: In a pair of opinions, Slaughter and Cook, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the president's authority to remove executive officers at will, invalidating for-cause restrictions at so-called independent agencies while carving out a limited exception for the Federal Reserve. The Court did not resolve the merits of whether Governor Lisa Cook can be removed from the Federal Reserve Board under the "good cause" standard.
The Result: Following recent precedents that have been increasingly skeptical of limits on presidential removal authority, Slaughter formally overrules the New Deal-era case of Humphrey's Executor, which had upheld removal restrictions at the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC").
Looking Ahead: Slaughter makes clear that principal officers at executive agencies throughout the federal government cannot be insulated from presidential removal. The decision does not directly address removal protections for inferior officers and civil-service employees, but opens the door for arguments that they too may fall under the president's removal authority. As for the Federal Reserve, Cook upholds a narrow for-cause removal restriction based on the historical tradition of independent regulation of monetary policy. But as the concurring and dissenting Justices observed, important questions remain about the extent to which the Federal Reserve may exercise executive power while shielded from at-will removal.
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court issued two landmark decisions addressing the president's power to remove members of so-called independent agencies. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court overruled Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935), holding that the for-cause removal provision protecting FTC commissioners violates the separation of powers. In Trump v. Cook, the Court declined to extend that holding to the Federal Reserve, instead upholding the for-cause removal protection enjoyed by members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
For-Cause Removal. In Slaughter, the Court traced the president's removal power to the Constitution's vesting of "[t]he executive Power" in a single president, the debates of the First Congress in 1789, and a long line of precedent, including the landmark case of Myers v. United States (1926). The Court reaffirmed that because executive officers serve as "assistants or deputies" of the president, they must be removable by him at will so that the "chain of dependence" from the lowest officers up to the president—and from the president to the people—is preserved.
Turning to Humphrey's Executor, the Court explained that this 1935 decision had been "tethered to a highly circumscribed and almost fictional view of the FTC's role," one that described the Commission as exercising "no part of the executive power" and occupying "no place in the executive department." The Court observed that subsequent decisions such as Free Enterprise Fund and Seila Law had undermined Humphrey's premises.
The Court then expressly overruled Humphrey's Executor, finding that the stare decisis factors favored doing so. The Court rejected the argument that Congress had relied on Humphrey's to create agencies insulated from presidential control, calling that "precisely the problem." Today, the Court noted, the FTC enforces and administers approximately 80 statutes covering almost every facet of the nation's economy; it undertakes "the very essence of 'execution' of the law." Because the FTC exercises executive power, the president must have the ability to remove its commissioners at will.
The Federal Reserve. In Trump v. Cook, the Court carved out a narrow exception for the Federal Reserve and declined to stay a lower court order that had enjoined President Trump from removing Governor Lisa Cook in August 2025. The president did not challenge the validity of the "good cause" removal standard in this case, but argued that removing Cook satisfied that standard because she made false statements on mortgage applications. The Supreme Court's interim decision declined to stay the lower court's injunction, holding that the government was not likely to prevail on its three threshold arguments: that the president's determination of "cause" is unreviewable by courts, that "cause" sets a low bar satisfied by any concerns about a governor's fitness, and that Cook was not entitled to remain in office pending further litigation.
The Cook opinion does not address "the ultimate question of whether the president can remove Cook for cause"—instead, the decision solely addresses the legal standard for the lower courts to apply on remand in deciding if Cook can be validly removed. As Justice Kavanaugh put it in his concurring opinion, "[t]he ultimate decision about whether the president may remove Governor Cook for cause will largely depend on the facts regarding the governor's actions."
Even though the president had not challenged the Federal Reserve's for-cause removal restriction, the Court analyzed it and upheld it as constitutional, grounding its analysis in the nation's unique tradition of independent regulation of monetary policy. At the same time, the Court's opinion stated that Congress may not "assign the Federal Reserve additional regulatory powers that are attenuated from monetary policy." In dissent, Justice Barrett identified questions left unresolved by the majority, including: "Do all the Federal Reserve's existing regulatory powers have the requisite connection to monetary policy? If not, are they grandfathered in?"
Three Key Takeaways
- The general rule, as announced in Slaughter, is that the president may remove at will any principal officer, and Humphrey's Executorno longer supplies any exception, even for multimember commissions like the FTC.
- The narrow exception recognized in Cook leaves unresolved the outer bounds of when the Federal Reserve governors may enjoy removal protection and does not resolve whether Governor Lisa Cook can be removed by the president.
- The decisions leave open significant questions—including the status of removal protections for inferior officers and civil-service employees—but together mark a decisive turn in the Court's separation-of-powers jurisprudence.
