Former Federal Trade Commissioner (FTC) Alvaro Bedoya cautioned that there are very real financial and safety impacts that can unfold if the U.S. Supreme Court allows Trump to fire appointees by other presidents on the FTC board.
During the debate at the High Court on Monday, Justice Samuel Alito asked President Donald Trump's solicitor general to address whether the sky would fall if they gave Trump the power to fire appointees to various government boards.
But Bedoya told CNN that there are very real implications if FTC board members were to be replaced by Trump with loyalists.
"The FTC protects you against fraudsters and monopolists," said Bedoya. "We were the folks who banned [former pharma CEO] Martin Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life. We blocked what would have been the largest grocery store merger in history that would have raised the price of eggs and milk even higher."
He explained that the goal is to have people making decisions about such issues to be independent from the businesses being regulated.
"In a world where the president can fire any of us at any time for no reason whatsoever, that's a world that's ripe for deal-making and corruption that you don't want when it comes to the price of your groceries or the price of your medicine," said Bedoya.
Trump fired FTC member Rebecca Slaughter, and Bedoya noted that for 90 years, the Supreme Court has said that it isn't possible. That appears to be up for debate now, however.
The independence from influence is a philosophy that Congress and the Supreme Court have upheld. Today, however, "not everyone in these government agencies serves at the pleasure of the president, and Congress has made it that way. And Congress said they want to protect those basics of life with independence and nonpartisanship."
"I want the folks in charge of keeping markets safe to be independent and nonpartisan," he continued. "My kids play with toys. I want those toys to be free of lead. I want the grocery stores to be giving me good prices and not just merging with whoever to raise prices even further, knowing they have the president in their pocket. So, I think there's a pretty good counterargument that if the Supreme Court sides with the solicitor general, and sides with the president, we do have a pretty seriously bad situation on our hands," Bedoya closed.
He also predicted that if the Supreme Court allows the firings, Trump will do the same with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission next.
Watch the segment below:
