Scoop: FTC chair endorses Trump's ability to fire commissioners

• It will alarm progressive activists and Democratic lawmakers who are concerned that Trump wants to purge independent agencies like the FTC and the National Labor Relations Board.

Driving the news: Ferguson, a former solicitor general for the Commonwealth of Virginia, is filing a motion on Friday to formally change the FTC's legal position.

• He is seizing on a letter sent to Congress this week by the acting solicitor general that the Trump Justice Department will seek to overturn a 90-year old Supreme Court decision known as "Humphrey's Executor."
• In 1935, the court ruled that the president could only dismiss the head of an independent agency "for cause."
• The new Trump approach holds that the heads and other board members can be fired based on the president's "will."

What they're saying: "I agree with every word of the Acting Solicitor General's letter. Humphrey's Executor was wrongly decided, is deeply anti-democratic, and ought to be overruled," Ferguson told Axios in an exclusive statement.

• "I will be making a motion to ask my fellow Commissioners to agree to align the FTC's position on this issue with the President's position," he said.

Zoom out: Legal scholars – and the Supreme Court – are deeply divided on the constitutionality of Humphrey's Executor and which agencies it applies to.

• In 2020, the court ruled the president had the power to fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Zoom in: Trump has already moved to fire the acting chair of the NLRB.

• That has led to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to launch an investigation into Trump's authority.

Go deeper: The FTC is beefing up its staff with a string of new hires who are skeptical of Big Tech.