Fired FTC commissioner warns of the ‘corrupting influence of billionaires’

is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform. President Donald Trump’s sudden and unlawful firing of the Federal Trade Commission’s two remaining Democrats will serve the tech billionaires who backed him, not the American people, warned one of the ousted officials today. “I think we need to be focused on the billionaires over President Trump’s shoulder at his inauguration and what this attempt will do for them,” Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in some of his first live remarks since the firing, at a hearing before the Colorado state legislature. “Above all else, we need to be asking ourselves, who will win from this attempt to illegally remove us, and frankly, who will lose?” Bedoya and his fellow Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were both fired by Trump on Tuesday evening in what they call an illega ... Read full article.