US appeals court reinstates FTC commissioner fired by Trump | Trump administration
On Tuesday, a divided American court of appeal allowed the Federal Commissioner of American Trade Rebecca Slaughter, a democrat, to resume his role to the agency, while Donald Trump tries to withdraw it from his functions.
In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeal of the Columbia District Circuit allowed a lower judgment decision in favor of the slaughter to take effect, rejecting the Trump administration to delay the decision when appealing.
The court declared that the commissioners of the FTC cannot be dismissed by a president without reason, claiming that the law on this point has been clear for almost a century.
“The Government will not be likely to be successful because any decision in its favor of this court should challenge the preceding previous, on the verge and has repeatedly preserved the Supreme Court,” wrote two judges in majority opinion.
A third judge, appointed by Trump, Neomi Rao, is in vogue, saying that the federal courts probably have no authority “to order the reinstatement of an officer returned by the president”.
Slaughter said on Tuesday that it had been encouraged by the decision and that Trump was “not above the law”.
“I am very impatient to come back first to do tomorrow to the work that was responsible for me on behalf of the American people,” said Slaughter in a statement by email.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The FTC applies consumer protection laws and antitrust.
Trump had appointed the slaughter to his first mandate on the FTC in 2018. Joe Biden appointed him as an acting president of the FTC in January 2021, and Biden appointed her to a second term in 2023, which should end in September 2029.
A federal judge judged in July that the Trump administration’s attempt to delete the slaughter did not comply with federal law referral protections.
As part of the bipartite structure of the FTC, no more than three of the five commissioners can come from the same party. The Congress imposed restrictions on hiring and dismissal of the commissioners in order to isolate the agency of partisan policy.
Trump dismissed the two Democratic commissioners on the FTC in March, in a major test for the independence of regulatory organizations.
The dispute over Trump’s dismissal of the slaughter and his colleague Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya will probably find himself before the Supreme Court, who judged 90 years ago that the commissioners of the FTC can only be rejected for a good cause, as the negligence of their functions. Bedoya officially resigned in June to take another job and is not part of the case.
