Dec. 8, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Lawrence HurleyWASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday weighs whether to drive the final nail into the coffin of the long-standing concept of independent federal agencies that operate at arm’s length from the president.In a significant case on the structure of the federal government, the conservative-majority court is hearing arguments on whether President Donald Trump had the authority to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission regardless of a law enacted by Congress to insulate the agency from political pressures.The court has already signaled, with strong opposition from the three liberal justices, that Trump is likely to win the case by allowing the Democratic-appointed commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, to be removed from office while the litigation continues.Trump fired Slaughter and the commission’s other Democratic appointee in March. The FTC, which is responsible for consumer protection and antitrust enforcement, currently has just two of five commissioners, both Republican-appointed.Since taking office in January, Trump has sought to dramatically remake the federal government by downsizing agencies whose missions he does not favor, withholding Congress-approved spending he opposes and firing thousands of career federal employees.The MAGA movement and allied business interests have long targeted federal workers and the agencies where they work as a shadowy, unaccountable “deep state.”Government bodies set up by Congress to be independent of the president have been a particular focus of the Trump administration. Many of those agencies wield considerable regulatory power and have long been loathed by business interests.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest business group in the nation, is among the organizations that filed a brief backing the administration over Slaughter’s firing.Trump’s legal team has fully embraced a conservative legal argument called the “unitary executive theory,” which asserts that the president has the exclusive authority under Article 2 of the Constitution to exert executive power, including making regulatory decisions.In line with that argument, which has been favored by conservative Supreme Court justices in previous cases, Trump has sought to take over agencies, notwithstanding the restrictions imposed by Congress.Under the 1914 law that set up the FTC, members can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Other agencies have similar restrictions.Nevertheless, Trump has fired, without cause, members not just of the FTC but also many other agencies that have power over vital health, safety, labor and environmental issues, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Surface Transportation Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.The administration has also gone further afield, asserting the power to fire officials in bodies set up by Congress that are not under the executive branch, including the Library of Congress.Just last week, the administration added Trump’s name to the sign on the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, a private corporation created by Congress. Trump removed various board members upon taking office, with an appeals court allowing him to do so despite ongoing litigation.The principal legal question before the Supreme Court is whether a 1935 Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld restrictions on the president’s power to fire FTC members, should be overturned.A second legal question concerns whether Slaughter even has a legal avenue to remain in office if she ultimately wins on her argument that the firing was illegal.The ruling would apply not just to the FTC but also to the other federal agencies with similar restrictions. In addition to allowing Trump to fire Slaughter, the Supreme Court also allowed firings at some of the other affected agencies, further signaling that the majority favors Trump’s position.In doing so, the conservative majority has faced considerable criticism over how it has frequently ruled in favor of Trump via emergency orders without hearing oral arguments or issuing detailed rulings.One significant exception in the firings context is Trump’s effort to remove Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. In a May order, the court suggested that the Federal Reserve is different from other agencies because it is “uniquely structured.”The justices will hear arguments in Cook’s case in January.Lower courts ruled in favor of Slaughter before the Supreme Court stepped in.Lawrence HurleyLawrence Hurley is a senior Supreme Court reporter for NBC News.