Former Officials: FTC ‘Substantially Diminished’ Under Current Leadership

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2025 – Once the nation’s guardian of fair markets and consumer rights, the Federal Trade Commission has drifted from its independent mandate, former officials warned Wednesday.

Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat removed by President Donald Trump without cause in March, said that under current leadership the FTC has curtailed open commission meetings, narrowed opportunities for public input, and sidelined dissenting voices that traditionally kept the agency grounded in law and evidence.

“We want the law to be administered without fear or favor,” Slaughter said, speaking at Public Knowledge’s People’s Oversight Hearing in Washington. “It is not okay for those decisions to be made based on doing political favors and rewarding political donors.”

Slaughter cited fellow Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, also removed from the FTC earlier this year, who warned about links between political donations and favorable agency decisions. “That is a pattern that merits an enormous amount of attention and is directly tied to this question of independence,” she said.

Slaughter said the FTC’s focus has shifted away from core consumer protection work toward politically charged priorities, noting that initiatives such as the proposed non-compete ban and “click-to-cancel” rule have been abandoned or vacated.

Leaving those fights to a patchwork of states, Slaughter said, means millions lose protection and industry faces a harder compliance landscape than one coherent federal standard.

“All Americans deserve the protection of the law, and they deserve to be protected from abusive business practices,” she said.

Trump 45 FTC official also raised concerns

Similar concerns were raised by Bilal Sayyed, former director of the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning during the first Trump administration, who said the FTC’s limited resources were being diverted toward issues “outside of the FTC’s core competencies,” pointing to the FTC’s recent inquiry into platform’s content moderation practices as evidence. 

“The Federal Trade Commission is substantially diminished in its ability to perform its law enforcement, regulatory and advocacy mission as compared to the end of the first Trump administration,” Sayyed said.

Those concerns were echoed by Lisa Hone, a former senior advisor at the FTC, pointing to a pattern of political investigations and reversals of prior consumer protections.

“The remaining Republicans, led by Chairman [Andrew] Ferguson, seem to be dedicating the FTC’s limited resources to hosting bias workshops, engaging in political investigations and overturning previous commission orders,” Hone said.

This is “all while failing to defend Commission rules that save money for consumers purchasing cars, make it easier for consumers to cancel subscription services and ban non-compete clauses in employment contracts which restrict hard working Americans,” she added.

Hone noted that major tech investigations launched under the previous administration, including probes into TikTok and Snapchat, have stalled without explanation.

She added that while the FTC recently secured a $2.5 billion settlement with Amazon over allegedly deceptive Prime sign-ups, questions remain about whether the penalty was sufficient and whether stronger injunctive measures were warranted.