US Senate confirms Trump's FTC commissioner pick

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's pick for the third Republican commissioner on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, despite criticism from Democrats over Trump's move to oust two commissioners from the consumer protection and antitrust agency.

The confirmation of Mark Meador, a partner at law firm Kressin Meador Powers and former antitrust counsel to Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, gives Republicans a majority on the FTC, whether or not a court reinstates the two Democratic commissioners who say they were illegally fired.

Meador previously worked as an antitrust attorney at the FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice.

At his confirmation hearing in February, Meador emphasized the importance of antitrust enforcement in tackling high prices on consumer goods.

"Protecting competition in all of our markets is essential to ensuring that America’s free market economy operates as our servant, not our master," Meador said.

On Thursday, fired commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya raised concerns that staff from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency would have improper access to FTC data.

At his February hearing, Meador said about DOGE data access that the FTC "will follow the laws that it enforces as well as the laws that restrict it," referring to provisions that keep merger and other data confidential within the agency.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New YorkEditing by Marguerita Choy)