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... Jonathan Cohen, a lawyer for the FTC, made the request before U.S. District Judge John Chun, who is overseeing the legal proceedings from a 2023 lawsuit the commission filed against the e-commerce giant in Washington state.

"Our resource constraints are severe and really unique to this moment," Cohen said during a status hearing on Wednesday. "We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on the case team."

When the judge asked if the agency's challenges were due to recent cuts in the federal government, Cohen said it was, adding that some employees chose to leave the FTC following the "Fork in the road" email sent by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in January. Staff members who resigned for other reasons also have not been replaced due to a government hiring freeze, he said. ...