The Supreme Court issued rulings in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook on June 29, 2026. In Trump v. Cook, the Court held that the Constitution allows Congress to protect the Federal Reserve System's independence by prohibiting presidents from firing Federal Reserve governors without cause. Chief Justice Roberts wrote in footnote 6 of the decision: "In upholding the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve as currently structured and with its existing enforcement authorities, we do not suggest that Congress could assign the Federal Reserve additional regulatory powers that are attenuated from monetary policy." Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Clarence Thomas each wrote a dissent in the Cook decision.

In Trump v. Slaughter, decided on the same day, the Supreme Court held that the modern Federal Trade Commission's powers are overwhelmingly executive. This ruling follows a series of previous cases regarding executive power and independent agencies.

In 1926, the Supreme Court broadly endorsed presidential power to fire agency heads in Myers v. United States. However, in 1935, the Court held in Humphrey's Executor v. United States that Congress could make agencies like the Federal Trade Commission independent from total presidential control. Justices Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo joined that unanimous ruling.

The Supreme Court declared in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB in 2009 that the Humphrey's Executor precedent would not be extended to new forms of agency independence. More recently, in 2020, the Court voided the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's for-cause removal protection in Seila Law v. CFPB. The Court also applied the principle regarding executive power to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2021 in Collins v. Yellen.