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President Donald Trump fired two Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, in another major test of the independence of regulatory agencies.
A White House official confirmed the firings of Democratic Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter after they were first reported by Reuters, but had no additional comment.
The firings drew sharp criticism from Democratic senators and antimonopoly groups concerned that the move was designed to remove opposition within the agency to big corporations.
“Illegally gutting the Commission will empower fraudsters and monopolists, and consumers will pay the price,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, in a statement.
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The FTC enforces consumer protection and antitrust laws, and has a bipartisan structure where no more than three of the five commissioners can come from the same party.
Both Bedoya and Slaughter plan to sue to reverse the firings. “This is corruption plain and simple,” Bedoya said in a statement on X.
Slaughter said in a statement: “The President illegally fired me from my position as a Federal Trade Commissioner, violating the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent.”
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, a Republican appointed to the commission last year by then-President Joe Biden and named chairman by Trump, said on Tuesday he has “no doubts” about Trump’s constitutional authority to remove commissioners, “which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government.”
“The Federal Trade Commission will continue its tireless work to protect consumers, lower prices, and police anticompetitive behavior,” Ferguson said on X.
Mark Meador, Trump’s pick as the third Republican on the commission, has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. It was unclear if the Trump administration planned to nominate replacement commissioners for the two who were fired. The FTC can bring or dismiss cases with only two commissioners.
Trump has already sparked lawsuits by firing members of other independent agencies including the National Labor Relations Board.
The Supreme Court in 1935 upheld a law allowing the firing of FTC commissioners only for good cause, such as neglecting their duties. The ruling shields several independent, bipartisan multi-member agencies from direct White House control.
Two federal judges in Washington, D.C., have said Trump’s firing of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board Member Cathy Harris violated federal law.
The Trump administration has embraced an expansive view of presidential power, and an executive order on Feb. 18 gave the White House greater control over independent agencies.
The firings may complicate Ferguson’s bid to show the FTC remains committed to protecting consumers and competition in U.S. markets.
Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, the other Republican on the commission, and Ferguson were recused in the FTC’s case accusing the three largest pharmacy benefit managers of steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin so they could reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.
The recusals raise uncertainty about how the FTC will manage the case going forward.
Klobuchar told Reuters on Tuesday that while she supported Meador’s nomination before, she will not now.
“I don’t understand why when they are firing people we would ever support their commissioners again,” she said.
Ferguson has reiterated the agency’s commitment to policing Big Tech companies.
The agency is gearing up for trials in a case against Meta Platforms and two cases against Amazon. It is also enforcing privacy-related settlements with Meta and X.
Reuters
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