A Democratic member who President Donald Trump fired from the Federal Trade Commission has filed a sworn statement announcing his “formal resignation” and must now reclaim standing as a plaintiff challenging his ouster as unlawful.

Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya “formally resigned” effective Monday nearly three months after Trump removed him and fellow Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter at will, according to a declaration Bedoya filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“For personal reasons, I can no longer afford to go without any source of income for my family,” Bedoya, who worked as a Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr litigator, in the late 2000s wrote in his sworn statement. “Applicable rules and regulations limit an FTC Commissioner’s ability to accept other employment while serving on the Commission.”

Bedoya, 43, seeks a court order declaring Trump’s March 18 firing decision unlawful.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan of the District of Columbia in a minute order Wednesday directed the parties to submit supplemental briefs by June 18 addressing whether Bedoya has standing to seek relief at this stage.

Bedoya, a Yale Law School graduate, said accepting other employment during the pendency of his litigation “could give rise to an appearance of impropriety or to actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” so he decided to formally resign from the FTC “out of an abundance of caution.”

A Big Law alumnus, Bedoya worked as a litigation associate at Wilmer from 2007 to 2009 and later served as a Georgetown University Law Center professor before former President Joe Biden appointed him to the FTC in 2022.

New York-based commercial litigation boutique Clarick Gueron Reisbaum and nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy represent plaintiffs Slaughter and Bedoya in a pending lawsuit challenging the legality of their removals from the FTC.

Slaughter seeks injunctive relief restoring her status as a duly appointed FTC commissioner confirmed by the U.S. Senate, while Bedoya seeks a narrower relief affirming his resignation while declaring his “purported termination” unlawful.

FTC commissioners under federal law can only be “removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1935 landmark decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United Statesupheld the FTC Act’s removal protections.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration argue the president has the constitutional authority to remove FTC commissioners at will because the agency now exercises substantial executive power.

“The Court should hold that Plaintiffs’ termination was lawful because the Commissioners’ removal protections are unconstitutional,” DOJ attorneys wrote in a court filing asking AliKhan to deny Slaughter’s and Bedoya’s motion for summary judgment and enter judgment in favor of the government.

AliKhan held a May 20 motions hearing and is expected to issue a ruling in the near future.