Acting Federal Trade Commission chairman Maureen Ohlhausen has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
She almost certainly won't be going anywhere until the President can get his nominees to the FTC through the Senate because her exit would leave only a single commisioner, and a Democrat at that.
But the President is apparently looking ahead, having announced his intention to nominate her in what the White House tabbed the 10th wave of judicial nominees.
Ohlhausen, an attorney, is formerly a staff attorney on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and was a law clerk to Judge David Sentelle of that court, a familiar name to FCC legal challenge watchers since the D.C. Circuit has principal jurisdiction over appeals of that agency's decisions.
The President has nominated a new chair and a Republican (just this week) and a Democrat, which would round out the commission, at least while Ohlhausen was still there.
The President nominated Joseph Simons, a partner in the antitrust group at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to be the next chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Democrat Rohit Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America specializing in consumer protections for young people and military families, for the vacant Democratic seat, and Senate Republican staffer Noah Joshua for the remaining Republican seat. None of them has been acted on by the Senate.
“I congratulate Christine Wilson, Noah Phillips and Rohit Chopra on their nominations to serve as Commissioners and Joseph Simons on his nomination as Chairman," said Ohlhausen. "I wish them all well in their respective confirmation processes.”
(Photo via Gage Skidmore's Flickr. Image taken on July 19, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
