Former US Federal Trade Commission officials sue Trump over dismissal News
Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Former US Federal Trade Commission officials sue Trump over dismissal

Two former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials filed a lawsuit Thursday against US President Donald Trump seeking to challenge their dismissal as commissioners from the FTC. Trump fired Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter on Tuesday, making the two commissioners the latest officials dismissed from an administrative agency.

Filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, the complaint alleges violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA), the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and the US Constitution. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro M. Bedoya are seeking injunctive and declaratory relief that would restore their positions as FTC Commissioners.

In the complaint, lawyers for the dismissed commissioners accused the President of removing the plaintiffs for solely political reasons:

[I]t is bedrock, binding precedent that a President cannot remove an FTC Commissioner without cause. And yet that is precisely what has happened here: President Trump has purported to terminate Plaintiffs as FTC Commissioners, not because they were inefficient, neglectful of their duties, or engaged in malfeasance, but simply because their “continued service on the FTC is” supposedly “inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.”

Current FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson threw his support behind President Trump in a statement released Thursday stating that the Chairman had “no doubt” that the firings were constitutional and that the President would ultimately be vindicated in court.

In early February, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would no longer defend the independent status of certain governmental agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the FTC. In other words, the US president may terminate executive officers without cause, according to the DOJ.

The announcement is contrary to a case precedent set in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which restricted the power of the president to remove executive officers from congressionally created independent agencies. Dismissals following the announcement will likely face legal challenges in the future.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that the removal of Federal Labor Relations Board member Susan Tsui Grundmann was unlawful and ruled similarly in another case challenging the dismissal of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox.

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