Former US Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter said today that her firing by President Donald Trump has made her scared personally and professionally, but she is encouraged by the widespread support she has received.
Former US Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter said today that her firing by President Donald Trump has made her scared personally and professionally, but she is encouraged by the widespread support she has received.“When you see something that you think is wrong and it is time to fight back against it and to stand up for your principles and people are watching, it’s not easy and it is scary,” she said at a Washington, DC conference* today. “But just like [I tell] my kids, you too, can be brave, and I really want to encourage everyone to do that.”
Slaughter, who is challenging her firing and that of former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, said the stakes are higher than just her job.
She said that the bipartisan and independent nature of the agency is key to its credibility and noted that courts will take the agency’s arguments more seriously when there is bipartisan support for an enforcement action.
During her remarks she was twice interrupted by applause.
She said the message the president’s action to fire her sent was not just to the minority commissioners, it was to the majority members, too. It said, “I can fire you at any time if you don’t do what I want in any particular case. If what we, collectively as a community, want is the law to be administered without fear or favor, that should be very, very, very concerning to all of us.”
The former commissioners are basing their lawsuit to get their jobs back on the FTC Act and the US Supreme Court’s unanimous 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which said presidents can only fire members of independent commissions for cause.
After her remarks, she told reporters that since she was fired on March 18, she has been locked out of her agency e-mail and phone and has not been paid.
Former FTC Chairman Bill Kovacic said the decision to fire the two former Democratic commissioners is one reason that the agency is “at a moment of peril.”
He noted that the threats to its independence have been taking place even though Congress and the White House already exercise control over it in several areas, including its budget. And the FTC would have less credibility if there were a perception that it was taking an enforcement action just because the president ordered it to, he added.
Kovacic also said that people outside the United States are less impressed about the regulatory regime here because they see “less institutional stability.”
*American Bar Association Antitrust Spring Meeting 2025. Washington, DC. April 2-4, 2025.
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