Things got somewhat funny, if still headache-inducing, on Tuesday, March 18, when President Trump fired two Democratic Party-connected Federal Trade Commission commissioners – Alvaro M. Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter – as part of a post-inauguration personnel change. Both former commissioners freaked out online and accused Trump of corruption in letting them go.
As background, the Supreme Court ruled in 1935 that commissioners with the FTC, which is meant to enforce antitrust and consumer protection laws, can only be fired for cause, protecting them from political winds in the White House. President Trump appears to have ignored that ruling, much as he ignored Judge Boasberg in deporting MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador to protect the country. In this case, it appears that the commissioners fired were overtly political and partisan in their online messaging.
For example, in mid-February, Bedoya was using his position to attack Trump over egg prices. That led to a rebuke of him by fellow FTC commissioner Andrew Ferguson, who said, “Americans suffered for four years under Biden-Harris inflation. You did nothing to help them. Your screed one month after President Trump took office is just performative politics. That’s why the American people tossed your party out of power. Americans don’t want public officials whining like children on social media after years of doing nothing. They want adults who will try to fix their problems. The adults are getting back to work. I suggest you do the same.
Bedoya, in any case, lost it over his firing in a post on X in which he claimed President Trump was acting corruptly in firing him and then posted a lengthy statement on the matter. In the tweet, he said, “I am a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. The president just illegally fired me. This is corruption plain and simple.”
In the lengthy screed, Bedoya claimed to be fighting “monopolists” on behalf of “small down grocers…in Indian country” against Trump’s “golfing buddies,” with the blatantly partisan and political rhetoric of the statement indicates why Trump might have fired him. Bedoya began by saying, much as in the tweet, “I’m a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. The president just illegally fired me.”
He continued, keeping up the class war rhetoric, “The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists. Our staff is unafraid of the Martin Shkrelis and Jeff Bezos of the world. They take them to court and they win. Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies. Together with Chair Lina Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, I spent my time at the FTC fighting for small town grocers and pharmacists and for people in Indian country going hungry because food was too expensive. I fought for workers getting screwed on pay and benefits and overtime. I fought for their right to organize. I fought tech companies who think they can track you and your kids every hour of every day so they can pocket their next billion.”
Keeping it up and repeatedly attacking Trump, again hinting at the reason for his firing, Bedoya said, “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or someone who’s so disgusted with Washington you can barely watch the news, the FTC has worked for you. Who will Trump’s FTC work for? Will it work for the billionaires? Or will it work for you? It was an honor to serve my country at the FTC. It was an honor to work alongside its staff.”
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Concluding, and once again unintentionally painting himself as a liability and ne-er-do-well bureaucrat, Bedoya said, “And to everyone who is watching all of this unfold, don’t be scared. Fight back. Tomorrow I will testify before the Colorado Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and will have more to say then.”
Watch Sen. Cruz sound off on Adoya for his blatantly political and partisan rhetoric here:
Also freaking out over the matter was former commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. She did so in a statement to the New York Times in which she said, “Today the president illegally fired me from my position as a federal trade commissioner, violating the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent. Why? Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.”