Donald Trump’s firing of independent agency commissioners and board members is manifestly illegal and necessitates pushback.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Jeff Hauser, [email protected]
In response to President Trump’s lawless actions, Executive Director of The Revolving Door Project, Jeff Hauser released the following statement:
Donald Trump has now illegally fired multiple Democratic members of independent agency boards, including Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, years before their actual term expiry dates. In so doing, Trump has demonstrated yet again, an abject disregard for the basic rule of law, as well as an apparent willingness to engage in authoritarian-esque hostile takeovers of any part of the government able to provide a check to his power.
Congressional Democrats (and theoretically independent-minded Republicans) cannot let such an overt power grab, and such a tangible disregard for settled federal law, go without a fight. Make no mistake, though often overlooked, the actions of independent agencies have the power to shape nearly every part of public life, and the officials who staff them have genuine authority to hold corporations, including those owned by Trump’s own friends and advisors, accountable to the public they seem intent to abuse.
It is exactly this power that Trump seeks to fundamentally corrupt.
Senators could fight back with the full extent of the power that remains in their hands to engage in principled and coordinated opposition to these authoritarian power grabs. Indeed, recent years have already demonstrated masterful tactical obstructionism without any electoral consequence. It’s time to take note.
”Minority Commissioner appointments can and do matter greatly,” said Jeff Hauser, Revolving Door Project’s founder and Executive Director. “Rohit Chopra’s stint at the Federal Trade Commission under the Trump majority not only instigated substantive enforcement of existing law to the benefit of the public, but also included bringing Lina Khan onto the staff. Legacies can be made and the trajectory of policy changed by minority commissioners, which is why Trump’s corporate puppets are causing the administration to behave in such an undeniably illegal manner. People of goodwill can and should fight back.”
As we always, the Revolving Door Project will continue to track independent agencies, their personnel, their activities, and attempt our best defense of their crucial work, at AgencySpotlight.org.
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