Ousted Democratic FTC commissioner can return (again) for now

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Democratic Federal Trade Commissioner fired by President Donald Trump without cause, can at least temporarily return to work while her legal case plays out.

This happened once before when Slaughter briefly returned to her office months after Trump claimed to fire her, when US District Court Judge Loren AliKhan found her dismissal unlawful. Trump broke with decades of Supreme Court precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor, preventing presidents from firing independent commissioners without cause. But her return was short-lived — a few days later the appeals court temporarily paused the order reinstating Slaughter.

This latest order, approved 2-1 by a panel of appeals court judges, dissolves that stay and lets Slaughter get back to work until they decide on the merits of the case. While the majority judges don’t actually rule on the case, they write that the government is not likely to win, since “any ruling in its favor from this court would have to defy binding, on-point, and repeatedly preserved Supreme Court precedent.”