Democratic FTC Commissioners Sacked by Trump Administration (1)

The Trump administration dismissed two Democrats on the US Federal Trade Commission, in the latest move by the White House to assert control over US agencies.

The commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, were told of their dismissal Tuesday in an email from the White House personnel office. The five-member FTC enforces antitrust and consumer protection laws, including those related to the privacy of financial information and children online.

“The president just illegally fired me,” Bedoya said Tuesday in a social media post. “This is corruption plain and simple.”

“Today 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,” Slaughter said in an emailed statement. “Why? Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.”

“Your continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my Administration’s priorities. Accordingly, I am removing you from office,” the email said, according to a copy viewed by Bloomberg.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who joined the commission last year and was elevated by Donald Trump to lead the agency, defended the president’s decision on the dismissals.

“I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government,” Ferguson said in a post on X.

Ferguson has previously emphasized bipartisanship while pledging to vigorously police corporate mergers in the same vein as the previous administration under Chair Lina Khan.

“I think, some benefits in certain circumstances to having multi-member agencies with people from both parties,” Ferguson said recently on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast. “I wrote 400 plus pages of dissents during my time as a minority commissioner. I think that that adds value.”

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration will take the fight to the US Supreme Court if necessary. “The goal was to let these individuals go. If we have to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, we certainly will.”

‘Legal Options’

Slaughter said she is “considering legal options including a lawsuit.” Bedoya said he planned to sue over his dismissal. “I’ll see the president in court,” he said on X.

“I want the public to think about the billionaires standing over the president’s shoulder at the inauguration,” Bedoya said in a brief interview.

The FTC is pursuing cases against Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Both companies’ founders — Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos — attended the inauguration. Amazon and Meta declined Wednesday to comment.

The FTC does not require a quorum to conduct business so the panel can continue to bring cases with only two commissioners.

Removing the Democrats leaves the FTC, which has a staff of more than 1,200, with two Republican commissioners — Chair Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Melissa Holyoak. Trump has nominated a third Republican, Mark Meador, to fill the vacancy left when FTC Chair Lina Khan, a Biden appointee, stepped down. Meador’s nomination has advanced in the Senate but still requires a full chamber vote.

“It is unmistakably part of a larger plan to seize control of the regulatory agencies across the government,” said Bill Kovacic, a George Washington University law professor and FTC chair under President George W. Bush. It could also undermine the agency in court, since the bipartisan commission gives the FTC credibility with judges, he said. “It will now be a question of whether cases result from good professional judgment or direct political intervention.”

Reshaping Agencies

The firings are the latest by Trump to challenge a 90-year legal precedent that shields members of independent agencies — part of his administration’s move to gain greater influence across the government.

Since taking office in January, Trump has dismissed other members of independent agencies, including a Democratic commissioner from the National Labor Relations Board, and two Democrats on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He also fired the Democratic members of an independent intelligence review board created in the wake of Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Former NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox has sued over her removal, and a federal court ordered her reinstated. The Justice Department is appealing.

Bedoya was nominated by former President Joe Biden and joined the commission in May 2022 for a term that expires in September 2026. Slaughter arrived in 2018 during the first Trump administration and was later confirmed to a second term through September 2029.

Humphrey’s Executor

A 1935 Supreme Court case, known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, upheld job protections Congress created to shield FTC commissioners from being fired except in cases of malfeasance or neglect. The ruling green-lighted the independent agencies that now proliferate across the federal government.

The Justice Department said recently that it believes that Supreme Court decision is at odds with the Constitution and said that it would push the high court to reverse it. Independent agencies like the FTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission and others have members who are presidentially appointed, but not subject to White House control.

The Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that the president could fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for any reason, striking down a similar shield Congress had created for that position. Business and anti-regulatory groups have pushed the court to go further, arguing that the Constitution also gives the president authority to fire the leaders of multimember commissions that perform executive branch functions.

However, in January, the Supreme Court turned away an appeal brought by an Oklahoma-based company that argued the president should have the authority to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which sets standards on products and can seek multimillion-dollar fines from violators.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump term assembled by his allies and administration alumni, identified the Humphrey’s Executor case as one that should be revisited. Trump himself distanced himself from the document during the campaign, but has hired many of its authors.

(Updates with White House comment in 10th paragraph)

--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron and Jennifer A. Dlouhy.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Josh Sisco in San Francisco at jsisco6@bloomberg.net;
Leah Nylen in Washington at lnylen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg

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