We Must Fight Back Against Trump’s Illegal FTC Firings

Craig Aaron and Jessica J. González are the co-CEOs of Free Press Action. FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya served on the board of Free Press prior to entering public service.

Writing for Tech Policy Press three weeks ago, we warned of the Trump regime’s plans to “terminate uncooperative bureaucrats” and “remove sitting commissioners without cause.” We pleaded with congressional leaders to suspend business as usual and challenge the mounting attack on independent agencies.

On Tuesday, our fears were realized. President Trump moved, without cause, to dismiss the two Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya.

The attempted firing of Slaughter and Bedoya is an unlawful assault on the FTC’s independence. It imperils the checks and balances undergirding our democracy and undermines key consumer protections at a time of major privacy breaches and rising consumer prices for basic goods.

This move follows previous attempts by the administration to shutter key consumer agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and remove a Democratic appointee (since reinstated by a judge) at the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers from unfair labor practices.

The attack on the FTC marks a significant escalation in Trump’s crusade against independent and dissenting voices, particularly those who oversee the tech industry. As Bedoya said on X on Tuesday: “This is corruption plain and simple.”

Trump appears determined to upend an agency responsible for stopping scams, blocking illegal mergers, uncovering corporate collusion, and exposing other exploitative practices that Trump’s billionaire backers and fellow grifters want to get away with.

When it comes to the billionaires and tech CEOs who lined up behind Trump at his inauguration — Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk — the FTC is involved with ongoing enforcement actions against companies they control or oversee.

The FTC is working with 17 states to sue Amazon for anti-competitive practices. Meta has been under an FTC consent order due to the company’s rampant violations of user privacy since 2012. Google has faced multiple FTC actions for both deceptive practices and privacy violations, including collecting the personal data of children without their parents’ consent. And Musk’s X has faced multiple FTC enforcement actions, including an agency consent order resulting from the platform’s violations of user privacy.

“The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists,” Bedoya said in a statement. ”Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies.“

Beyond weakening the FTC’s oversight over big tech, the Trump administration’s broader goal is to overturn long-standing Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States — a ruling that overturned the illegal firing of an FTC commissioner in 1933 and upheld that the President could not remove commissioners of independent agencies like the FTC for political expediency.

The unlawful sacking of Bedoya and Slaughter is an invitation to the Court’s conservative majority to kill off independent agencies altogether, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Trump’s power grab is unlikely to end with the FTC, as he signed an executive order in February seeking to expand the White House’s authority over all federal regulatory agencies.

At the FTC, it’s not enough for the Trump regime to have a majority of votes on the Commission, like every previous presidential administration. Trump wants to silence any dissenting voices.

“The President illegally fired me,” Slaughter said in a statement. “Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.”

By contrast, Republican FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson released a statement claiming the president’s move was “necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government.”

Ignore the doublespeak. This is exactly how totalitarian regimes operate.

The attempt to fire Slaughter and Bedoya is an affront to our democracy, an attack on accountability, and a blatantly illegal power grab that must be stopped.

The courts must block Trump’s abuse of power and restore the Democratic commissioners to their positions. The precedent here is clear and long established.

Congress should refuse to consider any of Trump’s nominees until duly appointed officials are restored to their positions, not just at the FTC but also at essential government bodies like the NLRB and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Senate Democrats must condemn these illegal firings. And they must refuse to enable the Republican majority's efforts to wreck and dismantle federal regulatory agencies and, in the process, cede their own constitutional power and responsibilities. Until the independence of agencies like the FTC is respected and protected, and constitutional order is restored, senators must stop proceeding as if everything is normal.

Unfortunately, despite the clear warning signs, too many members of Congress have failed to act. Just last week, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced Trump's latest FTC nominee out of committee with bipartisan support. He now awaits a vote on the floor.

Congressional leaders should follow the lead of the Democratic FTC commissioners, who are pushing back and refusing to stay silent. “We are not going to go,” Slaughter said on Tuesday, “and we are certainly not going to go quietly."

Bedoya shared his own message, which may not have been intended for leaders on Capitol Hill but certainly needs to be heard there. “To everyone who is watching all of this unfold, don’t be scared,” he said, “Fight back.”