Justice Sonia Sotomayor attempted to pin down the Trump administration's solicitor general on what exactly the consequences would be if the Supreme Court agrees to overturn a 90-year-old precedent protecting the Federal Trade Commission's head from causeless firing, but Justice Samuel Alito swooped in a short time later with an assist.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer was peppered with questions on President Donald Trump's efforts to fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat , for reasons other than "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office," the removal causes identified in the landmark Humphrey's Executor case from 1935.

The oral arguments came days after a Trump-appointed majority on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rule

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