Trump’s FTC Chair Once Said He’d Follow a Court Precedent That Barred Presidents From Firing Commissioners

But FTC chair Andrew Ferguson ultimately defended Trump when the president fired two Democratic commissioners.

Federal Trade Commission

Jon Elswick/AP

Andrew Ferguson, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, has defended President Donald Trump’s firing of the panel’s two Democratic commissioners — and said it was entirely legal.

“I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove Commissioners,” Ferguson wrote in a statement last week, after the solicitor general issued the order to fire Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. Ferguson locked both the commissioners out of their offices.

But just two years ago, during his confirmation hearing, Ferguson answered questions about presidential removals of FTC commissioners quite differently, at least on their face.