Statement from Open Markets: Donald Trump Attempts to Fire Democratic FTC Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter

WASHINGTON – Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn released the following statement concerning the news that President Trump has moved to fire Democratically-appointed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter: 

“In America today, private monopoly poses one of the greatest domestic threats to democracy and individual liberty since the Civil War. It is a threat to our freedom to speak, our freedom of the press, and our freedom to live our own lives as we alone choose. It is a threat, in short, to every fundamental promise of the American Republic.  

For the last several years, the bipartisan Federal Trade Commission in Washington led much of the fight against this terrifying array of political and economic threats. FTC commissioners from both parties fought on behalf of the American people and American democracy. President Trump’s choice to chair the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, appeared poised to build on this work, at least in part.  

But President Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional attempt today to fire the Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya makes abundantly clear that he is not interested in protecting the liberty and economic wellbeing of the American people and American business, or the security and safety of the United States itself. 

Instead, it appears he has chosen to put the interests of the oligarch and all-powerful corporation first, and the interests of every other American last. 

We call first on President Trump to immediately reverse this deeply unwise and extravagantly counterproductive decision. Failing that we call on Congress to stand up in defense of the laws and institutions it created – using the powers established by the American people in the Constitution. We also call on the Courts to immediately put a halt to this attack on America’s free institutions and entire way of life.” 

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