Victims of Trump purge call supreme court ruling a ‘dagger in heart’ to civil service

Rebecca Slaughter wonders whether ‘the civil service survives at all’ after supreme court ruling. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Rebecca Slaughter wonders whether ‘the civil service survives at all’ after supreme court ruling. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images Victims of Trump purge call supreme court ruling a ‘dagger in heart’ to civil service Rebecca Slaughter, who was fired by Trump from the FTC in 2025, worries agencies will be undermined by threat of removal if a decision is contrary to president’s favor Federal officials fired by the Trump administration are calling the recent supreme court decision a “dagger in the heart” of the civil service that will open independent federal government agencies to corruption and manipulation at the whim of the president. Since Donald Trump took office again in January 2025, he has fired more than 50 officials from federal agencies as the Trump administration openly sought to have the supreme court overturn a landmark 1935 ruling that limited the president’s power over independent agencies, known as Humphrey’s Executor. The ruling in the decision, Trump v Slaughter , which effectively gives the president free rein to fire members of independent agencies, was based on the firing of Rebecca Slaughter, appointed to serve as a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by Trump in 2018. Slaughter said she received the email notifying her that she was fired by Trump in March 2025 as she was helping with rehearsal for her child’s elementary school play, a performance of Beauty and the Beast. “My stomach just dropped,” she said, noting she wasn’t surprised given similar firings were occurring at other agencies with statutory protections. “I was really hoping that it would avoid us, both because I love my job, but really more because I love the agency. I just knew this was going to be a big fight and pretty unpleasant and pretty destructive to this institution that I really valued.” She called Alvaro Bedoya, the other Democratic commissioner at the agency, who was at his daughter’s gymnastics practice. He had been fired as well. View image in fullscreen FTC commissioners Rebecca Slaughter, left, and Alvaro Bedoya, right, filed a lawsuit challenging their terminations a few days after they were fired in 2025. Photograph: UPI/Alamy They both filed a lawsuit challenging their terminations a few days later, though Bedoya resigned from the FTC as he was not being compensated and he could not afford to be without income, while Slaughter’s husband’s income made it possible for her to continue pursuing the litigation. In July 2025, a federal judge reinstated Slaughter, but the Trump administration appealed. In September 2025, the supreme court allowed Trump to remove Slaughter from the agency as the case continued and agreed to take up the case. “That was not a great sign,” said Slaughter. “If they did not want to overturn a 91-year-old precedent, they would