President Trump abruptly fired Democratic FTC commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya on Wednesday although the Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency.
Before I could get to the FTC website and find their photos, they had been removed.
The only photos on the site are of Andrew N. Ferguson, chair, and Melissa Holyoak, commissioner.
Ferguson served as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Mitch
McConnell, R-Kentucky, the Republican leader, and as a Republican counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Holyoak, former Republican solicitor-general of Utah, worked for the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a law firm that fights government programs, progressive causes, and class action settlements, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank.
The FTC is run by five commissioners, who serve seven-year terms. One of the commissioners is appointed by the president to serve as the agency’s chair, and no more than three of the commissioners can be affiliated with the same political party.
While the FTC Chair directs agenda-setting and oversees day-to-day operations of the agency, decisions regarding substantive matters, such as enforcement actions and policy initiatives, require a majority vote of the commissioners.
It was expected that President Trump would nominate Mark Meador, an antitrust attorney and former congressional staff employee with experience working for the FTC and U.S. Department of Justice, to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of the former chair, Lina Khan. Instead, Trump fired Slaughter and Bedoya.
With Meador, Holyoak, and Ferguson, the FTC would have had the three votes necessary to carry out the Trump agenda even though the FTC is an independent agency.
And, since the FTC is an independent agency, the president isn’t allowed to remove appointees except for inefficiency, neglect of duty, and malfeasance in office, as stated in 1935 in the Humphrey’s Executor v. United States case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Trump’s firing of Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter is a blatantly illegal move that cripples the FTC from fulfilling its mission to shield consumers from predatory practices,” Susan Weinstock, CEO of Consumer Federation of America, said in a statement. “A partisan, politicized FTC is a major step backwards for our country and pushes us closer to a market that only works for wealthy elites rather than everyday Americans.”
As chair of the FTC, Khan increased the number of anti-trust actions against corporations, which helps keep prices down for consumers. In addition, she said that a major cause of inflation is corporate consolidation. Under her leadership, the proposed Kroger-Albertsons grocery merger, which the FTC opposed, didn’t occur.
In addition, Khan said pharmaceutical industry, tech companies, and the hospitality industries are examples of how unchecked monopolies can drive up costs for Americans.
What’s going to happen under the Trump administration on anit-trust enforcement? Trump and Vice President JD Vance have spoken out against corporate giants, such as Microsoft and Google, which were subject to Khan’s scrutiny. Whether they’ll get a pass under Ferguson’s FTC remains to be seen.
However, one thing is certain. Trump’s FTC has cut back on regulation of American companies and corporations.
My inbox used to be filled with announcements about FTC actions against wrongdoers. Now, they’re few and far between.
