WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday ruled the firing of U.S. Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter by President Donald Trump earlier this year was illegal.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said the Trump administration’s attempt to remove Slaughter did not comply with removal protections in federal law.
The White House and FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Because those protections remain constitutional, as they have for almost a century, Ms. Slaughter’s purported removal was unlawful and without legal effect,” AliKhan wrote.
AliKhan said the Trump administration wants “the FTC to be something it is not: a subservient agency subject to the whims of the President and wholly lacking in autonomy. But that is not how Congress structured it.”
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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