Two fired commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are now suing the regulator and its chair, alleging that their removal is unlawful.
On March 18, Democratic Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were notified by the White House that they would be fired effective immediately, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal district court in Washington, D.C. In an email, President Donald Trump told the commissioners that their service was “inconsistent with my Administration’s priorities,” the lawsuit said.
The commissioners argue that their firing violates a 1935 Supreme Court ruling that found that the president can only fire an FTC commissioner when there is due cause.
Bedoya, an appointee of President Joe Biden, has a term that expires in September 2026. Slaughter was sworn in as commissioner during Trump’s first presidency and was confirmed for a second term in 2024.
“In short, it is bedrock, binding precedent that a President cannot remove an FTC Commissioner without cause. And yet that is precisely what has happened here,” the lawsuit reads.
Bedoya and Slaughter argue their terminations should be declared illegal and ineffective. They’re also seeking an injunction against FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, and Executive Director David Robbins that would force them to treat Bedoya and Slaughter as active FTC commissioners.
In a statement Thursday, Ferguson said he has “no doubt” that Trump’s orders will be confirmed by the courts. In an earlier statement, Holyoak agreed with Ferguson that the president has the constitutional authority to remove commissioners. The White House has pledged to defend the firings in court.
“The time was right to let these people go, and the president absolutely has the authority to do it,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a recent media briefing.
With Bedoya and Slaughter out of their jobs, at least for now, that leaves the FTC with just two sitting members out of five total. Mark Meador, nominated by Trump for the third Republican seat at the FTC, needs to be confirmed by the Senate. No more than three commissioners can be members of the same political party.
They’re not the first Democratic officials to sue the Trump administration.
Similar lawsuits have been filed by fired Democratic appointees at other federal agencies, including the Merit Systems Protection Board and National Labor Relations Board. The Trump administration is appealing a lower court’s ruling that reinstated those officials to their seats.
Slaughter and Bedoya have warned that if the president can fire whoever he pleases, that could affect the stability of financial markets. Slaughter told CNBC earlier this month that if she can be fired, then there’s no reason Trump couldn’t fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who the president has criticized.
“If your retirement is invested in stocks and mutual funds, if you want to buy or sell a house, if you have a checking account, you benefit from stable leadership in these institutions,” Bedoya said Thursday. “If the President can fire us for no reason, at any time, that’s the opposite of stability.”
Bedoya, who supported former FTC Chair Lina Khan’s strict antitrust stance on Big Tech companies, has linked his firing to his criticism of, and the FTC’s lawsuits against, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon (AMZN+0.40%) and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (META-0.90%).
“I’m not alleging that this was why I was fired, but I think it’s an interesting coincidence,” he said at a hearing before Colorado’s Judiciary Committee.
Both Zuckerberg’s and Bezos’ companies have attempted to better their relationships with the Trump administration through donations and other acts.
Amazon has inked deals to stream Trump’s “The Apprentice,” acquired the rights to a documentary about and executive produced by Melania Trump, and donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Meta has announced content moderation policies catering to conservatives, hired a Trump ally to its board of directors, and also donated to the inaugural fund.
—Ece Yildirim contribute to this report
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