Jamie Raskin Condemns ‘Unlawful Firing’ Of Democratic FTC Commissioners, Loss Of ‘Check On Big Tech’

2 days ago

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke of his disapproval for the recent removals of two democratic Federal Trade Commission Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The gentleman yields back. I ask unanimous consent to enter the record

00:06the letter from Gary Shapiro and Kinsey Fabrizzo of CTA dated April 2nd, 2025.

00:14Also the statement of Jennifer Huddleston from Cato dated April 2nd, 2025 and the letter from

00:23Graham Dufault of the App Association dated April 2nd, 2025 without objection.

00:34And Mr. Chairman?

00:34This gentleman from Illinois has a UC request.

00:38Yes, thank you, Chairman. I request unanimous consent to add to the record a tech policy press

00:45article entitled Doge Plan to Push AI Across the U.S. Federal Government is Wildly Dangerous.

00:52Without objection, the ranking member of the full committee is now recognized for five minutes.

01:00Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our witnesses today. It's hard to think of an

01:06antitrust matter more pressing than concentration in the AI market. The dominance of a handful of

01:12AI companies presents a long-term problem for our national security, our democracy, our privacy,

01:19and basic fairness in the marketplace. But President Trump has plunged our government

01:25into chaos and disabled the federal agencies that we depend on to address such problems.

01:31It will be difficult to effectively respond to dangerous market concentration in the

01:37assembly of all human knowledge if we have governmental power that is dangerously

01:42concentrated itself in the president to the exclusion of Congress as the lawmaking branch

01:47and the judiciary as the protector of constitutional rights and values.

01:51Over a century ago, Congress established the Federal Trade Commission. It was created as

01:55an independent agency to enforce antitrust and consumer protection laws outside of the

02:01controlling pressure and power agendas of any single president or party. For more than a

02:06century, the FTC has protected Americans against scams, fraud, and other unfair and deceptive

02:12practices. It's also promoted and protected competition in the marketplace, which benefits

02:17consumers, workers, and small businesses, driving innovation and business without monopoly.

02:23Congress designed the FTC to be led by five commissioners across party lines who serve

02:29seven-year terms, are subject to Senate confirmation, and can only be fired for a

02:33cause. Congress structured this independence to ensure that the FTC would serve the nonpartisan

02:39interests of the American people and be insulated from partisan political control.

02:44Over 90 years ago, the independence of these commissioners was tested and the Supreme Court

02:49unanimously reaffirmed that the president cannot unilaterally fire an independent FTC

02:55commissioner without cause. Unitary executive power violated the careful federal design and

03:01infringed Congress's lawmaking power to establish the FTC as an effective and balanced instrument

03:08for the public good. Yet President Trump chose to violate federal law and defy the court's

03:13long-standing precedent by attempting to fire without cause the two Democratic members of the

03:19FTC. He did so to end the nonpartisan independence of the FTC and to make sure it responds to his

03:27momentary political demands above the national public interest as contemplated by Congress.

03:34Accordingly, the commissioners have brought suit to reverse their unlawful firing and to,

03:38as Commissioner Slaughter stated, make sure that the work of the commission is done

03:43without fear of favor and, more specifically, that we can take on the biggest companies in

03:47America without fear of getting fired for failure to do a favor to the president's friends or donors

03:53or corporate allies. The strongest federal rules on AI were established by President Biden in a

03:592023 EO. The Trump administration reversed that executive order, which laid down the guardrails

04:04for the AI industry. Not content with this rollback, the president has now hobbled and

04:10undermined the lead cop on the AI beat, the FTC, which has for years been at the forefront

04:15of holding big tech, including AI, to account. It's hard to debate the proper scope of regulation

04:22in this political space when Donald Trump has reportedly granted Elon Musk unlimited access

04:28to our most private and sensitive records, data that's undoubtedly invaluable to ex-AI,

04:34his AI company. Today, none of us here know whether Musk is using our data, classified

04:40information, and other sensitive data from databases across government to train his company's

04:46AI models and gain an unfair advantage over competitors and against citizens. Musk has refused

04:52to answer our many requests on this topic, and now he's crippled the agency charged with

04:57investigating these very tech abuses. Even if we came together and found agreement on regulatory

05:03reforms and safeguards for AI development, we still now lack an expert independent agency

05:10to enforce our decisions. The president and Trump, uh, the president and Musk are ushering

05:18in a new regime in which monarchical power, cronyism, corruption, and sycophancy rule.

05:24He's using his office to enrich himself, his friends, and his donors, all at the expense

05:28of the people. The attempted firing of two FTC commissioners and his subsequent removal of any

05:34FTC resource that might serve as a check on big tech illustrate how the president is dismantling

05:40the machinery of government to serve his own ends. Our constitutional order is under attack

05:47to concentrate all political power in the president. It's the political equivalent

05:52of what we're trying to prevent in the economic sphere. I hope that our witnesses can give us

05:57their best, uh, insight as to how to deal with this problem, but we are facing a structural

06:03crisis now in our government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Jamie Raskin Condemns ‘Unlawful Firing’ Of Democratic FTC Commissioners, Loss Of ‘Check On Big Tech’

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