Press Releases

Washington, D.C. (March 20, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to President Trump demanding he reinstate Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The letter comes after President Trump’s attempt to remove Bedoya and Slaughter without cause, in violation of federal law, jeopardizing the FTC’s independence and important consumer protection and antitrust work that has benefitted all Americans for more than a century.

“By seeking to fire two Commissioners of this vital independent agency without good cause, you are making it easier for companies, including Twitter/X, Amazon, Meta, and Google to evade these laws, which will result in higher prices, and less privacy for consumers. This move is meant to empower oligarchs who were granted seats in the front row of your inauguration while harming the rest of the American people and the rule of law. The FTC Act permits you—or any other President—to remove a Commissioner only for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’ Your attempt to fire the Democrats on the FTC is not based on any of those statutory causes for removal,” wrote Ranking Members Raskin and Pallone.

As a pioneer in protecting consumer privacy, the Commission launched the seminal one-stop, national “do-not-call” registry decades ago and it continues that important work today by protecting against “harmful commercial surveillance” including sharing of drivers’ precise location without consent. The FTC works to protect millions of Americans from higher prices for essential groceries, protect workers, and combat pay-for-delay pharmaceutical schemes that cost consumers, insurers, and taxpayers $3.5 billion dollars each year. The dollar amounts recovered for the public or forwarded to the U.S. Treasury are staggering: fiscal year (FY) 2021: $562.1 million, FY 2022: $639.8 million, and FY 2023 $616.8 million.

Last month, the Acting Solicitor General informed the Committee on the Judiciary that the Trump Administration does not intend to defend the constitutionality of statutory tenure protections like the one that applies to FTC commissioners. In doing so, the Acting Solicitor General implicitly concedes that the firing of FTC Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter, and members of other independent federal agencies, violates both federal law and Supreme Court precedent.

“We demand that you reverse these unlawful and harmful firings and comply with your obligations to the American people under the Constitution and the law passed by Congress,” concluded the Ranking Members.

Click here to read the letter.