FTC Chairman: Trump Has Clear Legal Authority to Fire Federal Commissioners
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson defended President Donald Trump's firing of the commission’s two Democrats during a speech at the Free State Foundation conference Tuesday. Ferguson also espoused a theory on executive power that the president may remove commissioners and install supporters on what Trump has termed “so-called” independent commissions. When Americans choose a president, “we are electing the person who is going to be able to supervise the entire government, not parts of the government,” Ferguson said.
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The Trump administration has defended the firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and said it will continue to do so, even at the U.S. Supreme Court (see 2503190057). SCOTUS is widely expected to consider a case that could overturn Humphrey's Executor v. U.S., a unanimous 1935 decision that set a precedent preventing the president from firing members of commissions like the FTC (see 2503040019).
Ferguson noted that he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has supported the unitary executive theory of presidential power, which the Trump administration is putting into practice. Ferguson said that, in his view, Bedoya and Slaughter are no longer on the commission. “My own view is the president’s removal [of them] is lawful.”
Ferguson added that his views “on executive power generally are probably not terribly surprising.” The Constitution makes clear that all executive power is “vested in the president,” and SCOTUS has acknowledged that one of the key features of executive power is “the power to supervise and order subordinate officers who exercise the laws in the president’s name."
SCOTUS has already said it views the FTC as part of the executive branch, Ferguson argued. “The premise on which Humphrey’s Executor rested has been abandoned by the court.” The case also found that the president’s power to fire members of federal boards applies only to multimember boards “that do not wield substantial power,” he said.
“If the FTC doesn’t wield substantial executive power, I do not know what agency of the federal government does,” Ferguson said: “We have the power to issue and enforce rules having the power of law. We have the power to … conduct investigations. Our jurisdiction extends to almost every corner of the economy. We have the power to seek civil penalties. We have the power to obtain restitution, and we have the power to obtain injunctions in federal courts.”
No matter what the FTC was in 1935, the 2025 FTC exercises widespread power, Ferguson said. SCOTUS will overturn Humphrey’s Executor, or at least find that the current commission is so different from the one 90 years ago that the restrictions on firing commissioners no longer apply, he predicted.
Ferguson said his views on federal power likely apply to most of the “alphabet soup” of federal agencies. In addition, he disputed the “Wilsonian, utopian” theory that independent agencies' staff are “hyper-elite technical experts … who will know more about their subject matter than anyone else in America.” The “overwhelming majority” of federal commissioners “have substantial political experience and powerful political patrons.” For instance, Bedoya and Slaughter “spent almost their entire careers on the Hill,” he said.
The FTC isn’t “the censorship police,” but censorship by dominant platforms may fall under the commission’s antitrust or consumer protection regulation, Ferguson said. “I’m not looking for censorship qua censorship,” he added. “I’m looking for exercises of market power that might reveal themselves in censorship.”
Free State Foundation President Randolph May opened the conference by noting changes in Washington this year. “These new directions may well affect the way we think about the relationship between the three branches of government and their natural roles.”
FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak said at FSF she agrees with Ferguson that Trump “lawfully exercised his constitutional authority” in removing the FTC Democrats, adding the FTC can get things done with just two commissioners.
“We’re going to find out if Humphrey’s Executor is good law and right now only the Supreme Court knows for sure,” Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said.