Fired FTC commissioners fear Trump will go easy on Big Tech donors

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya were fired after work Tuesday, they told NBC News in separate interviews.

The two Democrats who were fired from the five-person Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday say that their removal from the panel will make it easier for President Donald Trump to reduce pressure on the Big Tech companies whose leaders support him.

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya were fired after work Tuesday, they told NBC News in separate interviews. Both said they viewed the firings as illegal, citing the 1935 Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and said they plan to sue to be reinstated.

The White House did not respond to an emailed question about the commissioners’ warnings, but spokesperson Taylor Rogers claimed Trump has the legal right to fire them.

”President Trump has the lawful authority to manage personnel within the executive branch. President Trump will continue to rid the federal government of bad actors unaligned with his common sense agenda the American people decisively voted for,” Rogers said in an emailed statement.

The FTC, formed in 1914 to combat U.S. monopolies, rests in the executive branch but is historically independent from the presidency. It’s traditionally staffed with five members, three from the president’s party and two from the opposition, making its investigations bipartisan, though rulings often fall along party lines. It’s unclear who will fill the newly empty seats, if anyone.