Democratic FTC commissioners say they were just ‘illegally fired’ by President Trump

President Donald Trump fired the two remaining Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission Tuesday in what appears to be a conspicuous exercise of power over the independent agency.

The White House confirmed the dismissals in an unsigned email response to The Verge. Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya shared his dismissal in a Notes app message posted to his X account Tuesday evening. “The president just illegally fired me,” Bedoya writes. “This is corruption plain and simple.” Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter also called the firing illegal in a statement saying it violates “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent.”

Both commissioners suggest in their statements that the firings are a nod to corporate power. “The administration clearly fears the accountability that opposition voices would provide if the President orders Chairman Ferguson to treat the most powerful corporations and their executives — like those that flanked the President at his inauguration — with kid gloves,” Slaughter writes. Bedoya says Trump “wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies,” rather than take on consumer protection and competition issues in big businesses. Earlier on Tuesday, Wired reported that the FTC had removed business guidance blogs from the past four years that included an information page explaining how AI chatbots can be designed in compliance with FTC regulations on unfair and deceptive practices, as well as information about the agency’s privacy lawsuits against Amazon and Microsoft that were brought against the companies under Khan. 

Trump “wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies”

Prior to joining the FTC, Bedoya was perhaps best known for his research on algorithmic bias, as well how surveillance affects Black communities. Slaughter is also known for her work on algorithmic discrimination against protected classes. While serving as commissioner, Slaughter tweeted in 2020 about how the FTC can be “antiracist.” In a following interview she said that “antitrust law is clearly about economic structure, and economic structure in this country has a pretty profoundly racialized effect.”

It’s typical during a change in administration for the prior administration’s FTC chair to submit a resignation, since the president has the power to tap a leader of the agency, as Trump did when promoting Republican Andrew Ferguson from commissioner to chair. It’s also common for the other commissioners to remain for the duration of their terms, since under the law, no more than three commissioners at the agency can be from a single party. As was to be expected, former Democratic Chair Lina Khan stepped down from her post at the agency earlier this year. Trump appointed Republican Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency and has also nominated Mark Meador to round out the agency’s Republicans alongside Melissa Holyoak. With a Republican majority, the FTC would already be able to push forward policies and enforcement actions without Democratic support. 

Again, that is the normal state of affairs when the White House changes hands. But the firings of these existing Democratic commissioners is highly unusual. However, close watchers of this White House might have expected this legally-fraught break with longstanding norms, not just because of the administration’s bulldozer approach to so-called federal workforce reform, but also because Trump issued an executive order last month asserting “Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch,” including “so-called independent agencies” like the FTC.

Ferguson said that as head of the executive branch, Trump “is vested with all of the executive power in our government”

Ferguson has endorsed the idea that presidents should be able to fire independent agency commissioners, saying that a 1935 Supreme Court case known as Humphrey’s Executor — which found such workers had to be dismissed for cause — “was wrongly decided.” In a statement following the dismissals, Ferguson said that as head of the executive branch, Trump “is vested with all of the executive power in our government. I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove Commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government.”

Bedoya says he will testify before the Colorado Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Wednesday, “and will have more to say then.” He also adds that he plans to pursue legal action to fight his dismissal: “I’ll see the president in court.”