Washington, D.C. — U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley issued the following statement today in response to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) denial of the Chamber's requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):
"It is clear that the FTC is attempting to govern via secret rules for secret proceedings with secret votes. After just two days and without any substantive consideration, the FTC issued a blanket denial of the Chamber’s request for transparency, claiming it was too burdensome. While we are considering our legal options, we have filed requests for the FTC to release its full and complete procedures manual, not just the portion that covers voting procedure and all the ‘zombie votes’ cast by former Commissioner Chopra. That is the least a public agency can do in the name of transparency.”
Yesterday evening, the Chamber submitted three FOIA requests seeking full disclosure of documents that the FTC has no reasonable defense to deny. The Chamber is seeking:
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Full and complete copies of (a) the “Office of the Secretary Procedures Manual” and (b) the document containing the “Policy with Respect to Counting Votes of Departing and Arriving Commissioners.”
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All records related to votes cast by Former Commissioner Rohit Chopra between September 30, 2021 and October 8, 2021. This includes, but is not limited to, the specific votes he purported to take that have yet to be made public or might never be made public as of the date of this request.
- All records related to counting votes of Former Commissioners for a period of time after their departure from the Commission. The timeframe for this request is November 23, 2020 (the start of the presidential transition period) to the present.
