At the end of the 2022 session of Congress, Joe Biden sent the name of a nominee for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that was so controversial, Democrats refused to even vote on the nomination in committee, fearing defeat by members of their own party.
The nominee, Gigi Sohn, was just renominated by the president, and the same groups that opposed her nomination last year are lining up against her this year. And for the same reasons.
“Law enforcement officers across the country risk their lives every day to protect and serve our communities,” National Sheriffs’ Association wrote in a letter to leaders of the Senate committee that oversees the FCC nomination. “They deserve the support of senior officials in the federal government who help to set policy. Unfortunately, Ms. Sohn has failed to provide such support by using social media to promote alarming statements that denigrate law enforcement.”
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“Sohn is a deeply divisive pick with a track record of hard-left advocacy,” a former FCC official told Fox News in November.
Indeed, Ms. Sohn would probably feel far more at home at a radical left protest than at the offices of an important independent agency. More than her anti-police track record, Republicans fear that Sohn’s hard-left radicalism will weaponize the agency against conservatives.
They noted that Sohn has used her Twitter account to like and retweet posts from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., arguing in favor of defunding the police. The letter added that Sohn once liked a “troubling” tweet that suggested “a few bad cops” should represent all cops.
In addition, she once sat on the board of an organization opposed to anti-sex trafficking laws. And that’s after calling Donald Trump a “raggedy white supremacist president.”
But Sohn’s biggest problem is the conflict of interest she would have after a legal settlement in her previous job.
In a statement last month, Wicker called for a new hearing into Sohn, specifically her time on the board at Locast — a broadcast TV streaming service that was shuttered after it lost a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Wicker was provided a confidential copy of a settlement agreement reached over Locast, provided by the four broadcast networks.
“My initial review of the confidential settlement raises several troubling questions about Ms. Sohn’s nomination,” Wicker said. “The possibility of the nominee’s future financial liability to a number of companies regulated by the FCC, and the timing of this settlement in relation to her nomination, demands a full discussion by the committee to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the ability for this nominee to act without any cloud of ethical doubt.”
Sohn’s nomination failed to get out of the committee last time. If Democrats are successful in foisting this radical on the FCC, it could affect everything from licensing conservative media outlets to regulating speech.
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