“Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars. Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers,” Kagan wrote.
Trump attempted to fire Slaughter in March, leading the commissioner to challenge the move, as presidents may only legally remove FTC commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
In July, a federal court blocked Trump’s “unlawful” attempt to remove Slaughter, citing Humphrey’s Executor. That decision was then upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which last week stated that Trump “has no likelihood of success on appeal given controlling and directly on point Supreme Court precedent.”
