1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

The President's actions in illegally firing Federal Trade Commission Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya are a blatant violation of the law and an assault on democratic institutions. The FTC is an independent agency established by Congress over a century ago to protect consumers from fraudulent and monopolistic practices. Its commissioners are given fixed terms and cannot be removed by the President except for specific causes like neglect of duty, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935). By ousting these commissioners without legitimate grounds, the President is undermining the FTC's ability to fulfill its mandate of safeguarding competition and consumer welfare. This move concentrates more power in the executive branch at the expense of the agency's independence and impartiality. Without a functional FTC to rein in corporate abuses, American consumers will inevitably face higher prices and fewer choices in the marketplace. Moreover, this flagrant violation of settled law represents a continuation of the President's descent into authoritarian rule by disregarding constitutional constraints and the separation of powers. It is imperative that the courts intervene swiftly to uphold the Humphrey's Executor precedent, reinstate the unlawfully terminated commissioners, and defend the integrity of independent regulatory agencies against further encroachments by the executive. Failing to do so would enable the President to stack the FTC and other bipartisan commissions with loyalists, rendering them toothless rubberstamps unable to execute their statutory missions. Do everything you can to fight this egregious overreach.