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Ousted FTC commissioner vows to sue after being fired by Trump

March 19, 2025 | | Print Article

President Donald Trump’s swing at “so-called independent agencies” set up a likely Supreme Court challenge to the “Administrative State” as he sent two FTC commissioners packing.

Thus far, the second Trump administration has taken strides to reassert the White House’s authority over the executive branch to truly tackle the swamp of unelected bureaucrats impacting the daily lives of Americans. Tuesday, this included the termination of the Federal Trade Commission’s two Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter, who argued they had been “illegally fired.”

Taking to X, Bedoya, whose seven-year term was set to expire in 2026, made the claim that the president was, among other things, attempting to protect billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as he had brought two lawsuits against the online retailer.

“The president just illegally fired me. This is corruption plain and simple,” he argued while posting a full statement before adding his intent to go to court over the termination.

Bedoya also shared the statement from Slaughter, whose term lasted until 2029, as she claimed, “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.”

Those opposed to the firings cited the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. wherein the court sided with FTC Commissioner William Humphrey after President Franklin Roosevelt fired him in 1933. Humphrey died prior to the ruling that argued the president did not have “illimitable power of removal” for appointees to “so-called independent agencies” which Trump took action on toward oversight and accountability of the unelected bureaucrats.

Current FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson welcomed the aim toward accountability from the White House and issued his own statement that read, “President Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch and is vested with all of the executive power in our government. I have no doubts about his 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. I wish Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya well, and I thank them for their service.”

Worth noting is that no more than three members of the five-member FTC were allowed to be from the same political party and each commissioner required Senate confirmation.

Anticipating challenges to the terminations would reach the Supreme Court, Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R), who previously served as his state’s attorney general, explained how the president was directly challenging the “core thesis of the Administrative State” and that Humphrey’s was one of the Supreme Court’s “worst reasoned and anti-constitutional cases.”

“In recent years, the Supreme Court has weakened the power of the flawed Humphrey’s case in its Seila Law v. CFBP and Collins v. Yellen’s cases, giving power pack to the People’s elected representatives and eliminating unaccountability in some agencies,” contended the lawmaker. “Today, President Trump brought us back to where this whole thing started, the Federal Trade Commission, by removing two FTC Commissioners who stand opposed to his agenda, his electoral mandate, and will be unaccountable to our constitutionally empowered officials.”

“This case will end up in the Supreme Court and will be one of the most important Separation of Powers cases in the last century,” expressed Schmitt, “if not the most important.”

Kevin Haggerty
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