An appeals court issued a ruling Tuesday seeking to reinstate a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner ousted by President Trump without cause.
In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who was appointed to the Democratic seat in 2018, was wrongfully removed from her post in March.
“The government is not likely to succeed on appeal because any ruling in its favor from this court would have to defy binding, on-point, and repeatedly preserved Supreme Court precedent,” the majority opinion reads.
“Bucking such precedent is not within this court’s job description,” it continued.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a similar rebuke to the Trump administration’s removal of Slaughter in July, ultimately deeming the measure illegal.
“Defendants repeatedly want the FTC to be something it is not: a subservient agency subject to the whims of the President and wholly lacking in autonomy. But that is not how Congress structured it,’ AliKhan wrote in her opinion.
“Undermining that autonomy by allowing the President to remove Commissioners at will inflicts an exceptionally unique harm distinct from the mine run of wrongful termination cases,” she added.
Still, the government maintains the president is within his rights to dismiss whomever he may choose.
“President Trump acted lawfully when he removed Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC. Indeed, the Supreme Court has twice in the last few months confirmed the President’s authority to remove the heads of executive agencies,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told The Hill.
“We look forward to being vindicated for a third time—and hopefully after this ruling, the lower courts will cease their defiance of Supreme Court orders,” Desai added.
Former President Biden nominated Slaughter for a second term in 2023. FTC commissioner tenures tend to last six years.
