US President Donald Trump on September 3, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a rush appeal that will decide whether President Donald Trump acted lawfully as he has wrested control of independent federal agencies by firing the board members who led them.

By granting the case involving the Federal Trade Commission, the high court said it is ready to answer a question that has swirled around the second Trump administration from its first weeks: Whether it should overturn a Roosevelt-era precedent that allowed Congress to protect those independent agencies from the whims of the White House.

Since retaking power in February, Trump has sought to upend a decades old system that gives some agencies within the government a degree of independence to do thei

See Full Page