On March 18, 2025, the Trump Administration sent letters to the two Democratic Commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) saying that they were removed as commissioners effective immediately. At least one of the letters stated that the commissioner’s “continued service on the F.T.C. is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities.”
There are two active Republican members of the five-seat FTC board as of March 20, 2025. Trump’s appointment of Mark Meador as a third Republican had not been confirmed by the Senate.
Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter argued that their firings were illegal and said they planned to sue. Commissioner Slaughter argued, “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.” Commissioner Bedoya called the firings “corruption, plain and simple.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), a member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, said, “Illegally gutting the commission will empower fraudsters and monopolists, and consumers will pay the price.”
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson (R) argued, “President Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch and is vested with all of the executive power of our government. I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government.” White House Spokesperson Taylor Rogers argued, “President Trump has the lawful authority to manage personnel within the executive branch [and] will continue to rid the federal government of bad actors unaligned with his common sense agenda the American people decisively voted for.” In a Feb. 18 executive order, President Trump claimed greater presidential power over independent executive agencies.
Background on the FTC and Humphrey’s Executor v. United States
The FTC was first established in 1914, with a statutory mandate to “prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce.” As an independent executive agency, the FTC has operated with a certain degree of autonomy within the executive branch. The FTC has five members, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. According to statute, “not more than three of the Commissioners shall be members of the same political party.”
The FTC is generally able to bring or dismiss cases with two commissioners. In at least one pending case the two Republican members, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak and Chairman Ferguson, have previously recused themselves. According to Reuters, “the recusals raise uncertainty about how the FTC will manage the case going forward.”
The question of whether the president has the legal power to fire FTC commissioners was central to the 1935 US Supreme Court case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In this case, President Franklin Roosevelt fired FTC Commissioner William E. Humphrey. After Humphrey died, his estate challenged the legality of the firing in court. The US Supreme Court ruled Roosevelt had acted improperly and the president could only remove FTC members for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” the only causes for dismissal explicitly given in the statute establishing the FTC.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the Trump administration hoped to seek the overturn of Humphrey’s Executor by dismissing the FTC commissioners. Leavitt said, “The goal was to let these individuals go. If we have to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, we certainly will.”
Background on President Trump’s executive order and independent agencies
President Trump has claimed expanded presidential powers over independent executive agencies compared to his predecessors. His Feb. 18 Executive Order: Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies challenges the autonomous status of independent executive agencies (like the FTC), arguing that this autonomy serves to “undermine such regulatory agencies’ accountability to the American people and prevent a unified and coherent execution of Federal law.” The executive order asserts powers of “presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch.”
Independent agency is a term used to describe an executive agency that operates with some degree of autonomy from the executive branch. Most commonly, it refers to agencies created by statute with limits on the authority of the president to remove their heads or commissioners. It can also refer to agencies that are not part of a cabinet-level department even if they don’t have removal limitations. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) lists 132 independent agencies. These include the Federal Reserve System (The Fed), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
President Trump has previously sought to fire members of other independent executive agencies. Examples include National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Member Gwynne Wilcox, Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) Member Cathy Harris, and Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub. All three of these officials have argued that their firings were illegal, with lower court federal judges ruling in favor of at least Wilcox and Harris in lawsuits brought by them. The Trump Administration appealed these decisions.
As of March 20, 2025, the official NLRB and MSPB websites listed Wilcox and Harris as current members of those boards, while the official FEC website did not list Weintraub as a current member. The official FTC website likewise did not list Slaughter and Bedoya as current members as of March 20, 2025.
Background and court rulings on independent agencies led by a single official
President Trump has also fired the heads of independent agencies run by a single person rather than a multi-member board. For example, President Trump removed Hampton Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger sued and was granted a preliminary injunction. An appeals court removed the injunction on March 5, and Dellinger dropped his lawsuit on March 6.
President Biden also fired the head of a single-person-led agency — Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Andrew Saul in 2021.
In the 2020 case of Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Supreme Court held that a statutory prohibition against at-will presidential firing of the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers principle. In the 2021 case of Collins v. Yellen, the Supreme Court likewise ruled against similar statutory restrictions on the president’s removal authority of the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).
While these cases have expanded presidential removal authority, they did not strike down the ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.
National Review commentator Andrew McCarthy argued that this case law has developed a distinction between presidential firing power over agencies with significant executive power led by a single official (such as the CFPB and FHFA), and those (like the FTC) that are “led by boards or other multi-headed arrangements.”
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