Meet the Likely Next FTC Commissioner: Ryan Baasch

By Paul Steidler: Bloomberg News reported late yesterday that Ryan Baasch (“Bash”), who serves on the National Economic Council (NEC), will soon be nominated by President Trump to serve as a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He will reportedly replace Commissioner Melissa Holyoak who is expected to be nominated as the U.S. Attorney for Utah.

At 37, Mr. Baasch is a young, and fast-rising legal star.

At the NEC, he is Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He focuses on cutting-edge technology issues at the frontier of AI regulation, space commercialization, and telecommunications networks according to his biography on the Federalist Society website.

He joined the NEC on January 27. Before that, he worked in the Texas Attorney General’s office for three years, “where he supervised all of the office’s offensive civil litigation and maintained a heavy appellate caseload touching First Amendment and technology cases,” according to his Federalist Society biography.

Texas Attorney General (AG) Paxton lauded Mr. Baasch upon his appointment to the NEC. In a January 17 news release he said, “Ryan Baasch helped launch the nation’s largest State data privacy enforcement team and played a key role in many of the Texas OAG’s landmark legal issues.” AG Paxton also lauded Mr. Baasch for delivering “victory after victory in our fight against government overreach, predatory corporations, and Big Tech censorship.”

Per his LinkedIn page, Mr. Baasch also served at the law firm Latham & Watkins for five years. He graduated from the University of Virginia Law School and earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Stony Brook University.

Mr. Baasch appears to be quite well spoken, organized, and cerebral. This is reflected in his opening remarks to a Federal Society panel discussion. It begins at the four-minute, 25-second point here and lasts for five minutes.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Mr. Baasch’s FTC term will officially end on September 25, 2032. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump fired two FTC Commissioners. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether a President has the authority to fire such commissioners at will.