He’s a top crypto lobbyist working to pass a White House-backed crypto bill. She’s a Democratic FTC commissioner who President Donald Trump unceremoniously fired earlier this year.
Meet the Slaughters: a Washington couple whose recent trials underscore the delicate alliances, and shattered precedents, that have come to define Trump’s second term in office.
Rebecca Slaughter sued the Trump administration earlier this year over her firing, which a D.C. federal court found in July to be unconstitutional. Now the Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the matter, potentially reversing the decision and not only end the longstanding independence of federal regulators, but also derail the crypto industry’s most coveted legislative project.
Justin Slaughter, vice president of regulatory affairs at crypto venture giant Paradigm, has been working overtime for years to get Congress to pass a lucrative crypto market structure bill. The bill would legalize most types of digital asset trading and investment activity in the United States, and its passage has become the chief goal of many of the country’s most powerful crypto companies.
Now, the outcome of his wife Rebecca’s lawsuit against the Trump administration could blow up the bill’s chances of passage.
Should the Court grant the president the ability to fire federal agency commissioners at will, and erode the independent nature of key federal agencies, insiders say the decision could hemorrhage bipartisan support for crypto legislation that’s heavily dependent on the input of impacted regulators like the SEC and CFTC.
“It’s been very difficult for them,” Todd Phillips, a law professor at Georgia State and friend of the couple, told Decrypt. “And it puts Justin in a very strange place.”
For almost a century, a key Supreme Court decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, has prevented the president from firing independent commissioners at key agencies like the FTC, SEC, and CFTC—except in extraordinary cases involving neglect of duty or malfeasance.
By firing Rebecca Slaughter, the Trump administration appears to have made a calculated move to challenge Humphrey’s—a case that also pertained to an ousted FTC commissioner—before the conservative-stacked Supreme Court.
Should the decision be overturned, the repercussions would be far-reaching, granting the president unprecedented power over the day-to-day operations of federal agencies long considered to be independent.
“The fact that the president can fire agency officials means that they’re now under the thumb of the White House,” Phillips said. “And that’s never been the case before.”
That pressure could reshape professional and interpersonal dynamics inside federal agencies, the law professor added.
“If Becca’s able to return [to the FTC] for some reason,” Phillips said, “the chair of the agency knows that treating her with respect—the respect a commissioner deserves—is going to infuriate the White House and potentially make the chair the next on the chopping block.”
Overturning Humphrey’s would also substantially impact crypto, since the decision could upend the foundations of the SEC and the CFTC at a time when both regulators are remaking rules for the digital asset industry.
It wasn’t until the day Rebecca was fired from the FTC that Justin realized his wife’s professional fate was on a collision course with own, a source familiar with the couple’s thinking, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told Decrypt.
“He didn’t think they were going to actually pull the trigger and fire Becca until it actually happened,” the source said. “He thought they would go after someone else.”
Justin and Rebecca Slaughter both declined Decrypt’s request for comment on this story.
Rebecca’s firing has already triggered ripple effects on Capitol Hill, where Democratic senators crucial to the passage of pending crypto legislation have begun to sound the alarm.
The SEC and CFTC, two of America’s top financial regulators, would be tasked with shaping the crypto market structure bill, if passed, through rulemaking. Both agencies are supposed to be operated by five commissioners, two of whom must belong to a minority political party.
The CFTC is currently being operated by a lone Republican acting chair, and the SEC features only one Democratic commissioner, who will have to leave by next year. In a break with longstanding precedent, President Trump has not given any indication he intends to nominate any Democrats to fill vacancies at either commission.
Pro-crypto Senate Democrats have become increasingly worried about the prospect of handing a passed crypto bill over to the SEC and CFTC if President Trump can wield total control over the makeup of those agencies, a Senate staffer familiar with the deliberations told Decrypt.
Last month, a group of a dozen pro-crypto Senate Democrats announced they would support the crypto market structure bill—but only if certain key conditions were met, including assurances regarding the bipartisan compositions of the SEC and CFTC.
The Trump administration’s push to wield greater control over independent agency commissioners may thus have put crypto’s coveted market structure bill in a difficult spot. Time is of the essence with getting a bipartisan coalition of 60 senators to support the legislation, which Republicans first hoped to pass by July, then by September, and now by the end of the year.
But the Supreme Court won’t rule on Rebecca Slaughter’s fate at the FTC until 2026 at the earliest. And in the current political environment, it’s unclear if Democrats would value a promise from Trump to nominate and keep commissioners from their party on the SEC and CFTC if the president is poised to soon gain the power to fire such commissioners at will.
“I think it’s ironic that one of the Trump admin’s more monarchical acts six months ago is going to potentially blow up one of their major legislative projects,” a source familiar with the Slaughters’ situation said.
In response to Decrypt‘s request for comment on this story, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said: “President Trump pledged to cement America’s dominance in crypto, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies driving growth, and the Administration is committed to delivering on this pledge.”
Some are still holding out hope there’s a way forward for the market structure bill without the White House’s buy-in on agency independence. Phillips, for instance, has crafted legislative language that would only allow the SEC and CFTC to function if they met a quorum that included at least one minority party commissioner.
While such language could be slipped into the Senate’s market structure bill to earn it bipartisan support, it remains unclear whether the White House would back any attempt to constrain its authority. The CFTC, for example—which is currently working aggressively to enact President Trump’s pro-crypto agenda—could not currently operate under such quorum rules, given its one-commissioner, one-party composition.
In one sense, the Slaughters’ relationship personifies the growing tension between the Trump administration’s dual campaigns to expand the power of the executive branch and benefit the crypto sector.
When the Trump administration fired Rebecca Slaughter from the FTC in March, it also fired her fellow Democratic commissioner, Alvaro Beyoda. While both ousted officials initially sued, protesting the moves as unconstitutional, Beyoda eventually resigned voluntarily from the commission, citing the need to take a new job and financially support his family.
Because she has refused to concede her claim to office, Rebecca Slaughter has been left as the sole party forcing the issue of her firing all the way up to the Supreme Court, in the case of Trump v. Slaughter. She has been able to do so thanks only to the financial support of her husband and his job as a lobbyist at Paradigm, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to Decrypt.
“The only reason Becca’s lawsuit can keep going is because of Justin’s job in crypto,” Phillips said. “It creates a very weird dynamic.”