A representative for the two commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) dismissed by President Donald Trump in March has criticized the administration’s legal arguments as a significant departure from established legal precedent.
“The radical idea that the Constitution gives the president virtually unlimited power to fire independent commissioners at the FTC, the Fed, and other similar agencies has no basis in law,” Amit Agarwal, special counsel at the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy, told Newsweek.
“In fact, it ignores nearly a century of settled law that limits the circumstances under which a president can remove commissioners.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s legal counsel via email for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump’s legal representatives have argued that the president’s executive authorities grant him largely unrestricted removal power over agencies within the executive branch of government. However, Trump’s efforts to oust high-ranking officials and lower-level staff from agencies such as the FTC or the National Labor Relations Board have faced substantial legal opposition, on the grounds that these actions represent an overly expansive interpretation of presidential powers.
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Annabelle Gordon / Alex Brandon / Mattie Neretin/Sipa via AP Images / AP Photo / Sipa via AP Images
What To Know
Agarwal is part of the legal team representing Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Martin Bedoya in their ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration and high-ranking officials at the FTC.
According to their complaint filed late last month with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the two Democratic commissioners received a message from the president on March 18 that read: “Your continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my Administration’s priorities. Accordingly, I am removing you from office pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution.”
Slaughter and Bedoya are now arguing for their dismissals to be deemed unlawful and invalid, as they engaged in no “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” per Title 15 of the U.S. Code, which lays out the rules governing the removal of FTC commissioners. The two are requesting that they be permitted to return to their duties at the federal agency.
In a filing with the Court on Wednesday, Trump’s legal counsel argued that removing the two commissioners was well within his executive powers as laid out in the Constitution and established legal precedent, and that this action did not fall under the recognized exceptions to the president’s “unrestricted removal power.”
They added that any order requiring him to reinstate the officials would amount to “an extraordinary intrusion on the President’s exclusive authority to exercise control over the Executive Branch.”
Against this, however, Agarwal told Newsweek: “The extraordinary intrusion here is the President’s attempt to give himself a power Congress withheld for good reason.”
What People Are Saying
FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter in March said that her removal violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent,” and that President Trump had fired her because he was “afraid of what I will tell the American people.”
President Donald Trump’s legal counsel wrote: “Neither of the two narrow exceptions the Supreme Court has recognized to the President’s otherwise unrestricted removal power—for inferior officers with limited authority and for multimember bodies that exercise functions that are legislative and judicial, rather than executive—applies here. FTC Commissioners must therefore be removable at will to ensure they, like the rest of the Executive Branch, are accountable to the people who elect the President.
“The President cannot be compelled to retain the services of principal officers whom he no longer believes should be entrusted with the exercise of executive power.”
Amit Agarwal, special counsel at Protect Democracy and part of the legal team representing Slaughter and Alvaro Martin Bedoya, told Newsweek: “Americans are seeing right now how much damage a president can do by wielding unchecked power over the economy. Congress wisely protected economic regulators like FTC commissioners and Fed members from political firing to prevent any president from using these powerful agencies to punish their enemies and enrich their friends. This isn’t about Democrats vs. Republicans or liberals vs. conservatives—it’s about a stable economy governed by laws rather than political whims.”
What Happens Next
On Wednesday, Trump’s legal team filed a motion for the court to deny Slaughter and Bedoya’s lawsuit. Their dismissal remains in effect pending the court’s ruling.
