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 …read more