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alvaro bedoya
'Constitutional Crime': Outrage as Trump Fires Democratic FTC Commissioners
"The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists," said fired commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. "Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lap dog for his golfing buddies."
Mar 18, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump said he fired the two Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission Tuesday, a move blasted by consumer rights and democracy advocates as yet another illegal abuse of power by the twice-impeached Republican felon.
The White House announced the termination of Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya from the FTC, a five-member body tasked with enforcing civil antiitrust law and protecting consumers.
"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 a statement. "Why? Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I'll tell the American people."
Just got a statement from Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic FTC commissioner, who was unlawfully fired today, furthering a showdown in the courts over control of independent agencies.
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— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
"The administration clearly fears the accountability that opposition voices would provide if the president orders Chair [Andrew] Ferguson to treat the most powerful corporations and their executives—like those that flanked the president at his inauguration—with kid gloves," Slaughter continued, referring to multibillionaire tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Last month, Ferguson endorsed the fringe legal theory that the president can terminate commissioners without cause—despite federal legislation against this. Bolstered by obsequious Republicans in his administration and Congress as well as a Supreme Court that critics say has granted the president king-like powers, Trump has moved to assert greater control over the federal government, including agencies meant to be independent.
Bedoya
wrote on social media: "The president just illegally fired me. This is corruption, plain and simple."
Full statement of @bedoyaftc.bsky.social, in my opinion the best FTC commissioner ever to commish, who was just fired by Trump
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— Evan Greer (@evangreer.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
"The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists, our staff is unafraid of the Martin Shkrelis and Jeff Bezos of the world. They take them to court and they win," Bedoya continued. "Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lap dog for his golfing buddies."
"I'll see the president in court," he added.
Responding to Trump's move, Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the watchdog group Revolving Door Project, said that "on the surface, this constitutional crime is about law and process and other abstract topics people often tune out—but underneath, it is motivated by good old-fashioned greed that will hurt every one of us who isn't a corrupt financier."
"Americans are rapidly losing their defenders against corporate fraud and malfeasance," Hauser continued. "First, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was gutted illegally by billionaire Elon Musk and his lackeys. Now, Trump is attempting, without a legal basis, to fire the FTC's two Democratic commissioners."
"As antitrust enforcement dies out and a handful of corporations accumulate even more economic power, Americans will only have one person to blame for the new fraud economy: Donald Trump," he added.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, the corporate power director at Demand Progress Education Fund, warned: "President Trump's illegal attempt to fire Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter opens the floodgates to unfettered corruption and self-dealing. This reckless attack on the FTC invites a return to the rampant, corporate graft that brought on the Great Depression."
"Billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos paid a lot for their concierge access to the White House and now President Trump is repaying their investment," she continued. "The FTC is currently investigating or suing many of the biggest corporations—including Google, which announced a multibillion-dollar merger just this afternoon."
"These illegal firing attempts put these investigations in doubt and could seriously curb the agency's power and responsibility to protect everyday Americans and honest, Main Street businesses from being scammed and trampled by megacorporations," Peterson-Cassin added. "With this action, the president is choosing to please his billionaire cronies, wreck the rule of law, and do generations of damage to a critical consumer protection agency."
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Biden FTC Applauded for Moving to Crack Down on 'Predatory Pricing,' Other Corporate Abuses
FTC Chair Lina Khan is "charting a path toward a new era of refined antitrust enforcement that prioritizes working families and small businesses," said one advocate.
Nov 10, 2022
Progressives cheered Thursday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-1 to issue a new policy statement restoring the agency's commitment to "rigorously enforcing the federal ban on unfair methods of competition."
While Section 5 of the FTC Act--passed in the early 20th century by congressional lawmakers unsatisfied with the Sherman Act, the original antitrust statute--prohibits "unfair methods of competition" and instructs the commission to identify and rein in such practices, the agency has refused for decades to exercise its full legal authority to do so.
The statement approved Thursday by FTC Chair Lina Khan and Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya revives the agency's policy of doing everything in its power to prevent corporations from using anti-competitive tactics to gain advantages.
"When Congress created the FTC, it clearly commanded us to crack down on unfair methods of competition," said Khan. "Enforcers have to use discretion, but that doesn't give us the right to ignore a central part of our mandate. Today's policy statement reactivates Section 5 and puts us on track to faithfully enforce the law as Congress designed."
As the Americal Economic Liberties Project (AELP) explained:
Section 5 of the FTC Act of 1914 originally charged the Federal Trade Commission with using its expertise to distinguish between "unfair" and "fair" methods of competition. As opposed to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division's role, which is focused on enforcement of the law, the FTC was tasked by Congress to clarify and interpret the rules of the road for anti-competitive behavior.
However, beginning in the 1980s, antitrust enforcers strayed from this original mission, culminating in a 2015 policy statement where the commission announced it would not bring cases under Section 5 unless they met a much narrower framework. One of Chair Khan's first actions as head of the FTC was to overturn this 2015 policy statement, with promises for additional policy statements in the future.
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director of the Open Markets Institute, applauded the FTC for announcing "a clean break with 40 years of blatant disregard for the rule of law."
"Since the early days of the Reagan administration, the FTC minimized or neglected its statutory obligation to identify and challenge unfair methods of competition by large corporations, no matter how damaging to our democracy and society," said Vaheesan.
"Instead, commissioners warped the law to fit the framework of their preferred economic theories--theories never adopted in law by Congress," Vaheesan noted. "Today, the three Democratic commissioners demonstrated that they understand that it was the American people--acting through Congress--who created the commission and vested it with broad competition powers, not a few Chicago School academics and advocates."
AELP executive director Sarah Miller called the blueprint approved Thursday "an important policy change that will empower the agency to better combat anti-competitive behavior across all markets."
"As a result, the FTC will have renewed authority to outlaw predatory pricing, unfair supplier rebates, and other abusive monopolistic tactics with sharp focus," said Miller. "Chair Khan isn't just realigning the agency with its congressional mandate after years of retreat, but charting a path toward a new era of refined antitrust enforcement that prioritizes working families and small businesses."
According to Demand Progress Education Fund legal director Ginger Quintero-McCall, the need for rigorous antitrust enforcement is increasingly important given the growing influence of Big Tech on the nation's economy and politics.
"Aggressive enforcement is necessary to meet the challenges of today's economy, especially in the online space, where monopolistic companies like Amazon and Google have too long abused their market dominance harming small businesses, consumers, and the economy at large," said Quintero-McCall.
Echoing others, Matt Kent, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen, offered additional praise.
"The FTC's policy statement lays out, in detail, the robust power of [the] federal government to limit anti-competitive corporate behavior," said Kent. "For too long, the FTC has adhered to self-imposed limits on the substantial authority granted by Congress to address unfair methods of competition."
"The crucial set of policy principles put forth in the document highlight neglected U.S. Supreme Court precedents that were previously ignored by business-friendly commissions," Kent added. "It's a credit to Chairwoman Khan, Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya, and staff for working to issue such an incisive and important legal interpretation."
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