Exclusive | FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak working remotely from Utah despite Trumps RTO order and DOGE clampdown: sources

A powerful member of the Federal Trade Commission has been working her high-profile post remotely – despite President Trump’s demands that federal employees show up to the office five days a week, The Post has learned.Melissa Holyoak, a Republican FTC commissioner who was confirmed by the Senate in March 2024, never moved to Washington DC and has instead continued to live in Utah with her husband and four young children, sources close to the situation told The Post.The top US regulator’s appearances at the FTC’s offices at 600 Pennsylvania Ave.— just a few blocks down the street from the White House — have been so infrequent that they have seemed noteworthy when they actually happen, the sources said.

“I would never see her in the office,” one former FTC official told The Post.“She would only fly in for the holiday parties.”That’s despite Holyoak being one of just two remaining members on the five-seat panel following Trump’s surprise firings of two Democratic commissioners earlier this month.

It’s also despite a clampdown by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, after the president in January ordered most federal employees to work in the office full time or be fired.“I’ve never heard of a commissioner living on the other side of the country.I think it was a weird situation,” according to a second official who recently left the agency.

“Most of the staff expected she was going to move to DC,” the source added.“This is a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position.

For someone at that level to phone it in was surprising.”The 39-year-old official recently claimed a coveted office at FTC headquarters with a balcony, high ceilings, an unobstructed view of the Capitol building and its own private bathroom, sources said.The office was formerly occupied by FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson, the other remaining commissioner who relocated after his appointment to the top spot.“I am honored to serve as a ...