On Jan. 9, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan had a series of hard-hitting questions for President Biden’s far-left nominee to serve on the powerful Federal Communications Commission.
Biden tapped Gigi Sohn to fill the fifth and final seat on the FCC, the federal body that regulates and enforces laws pertaining to interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
Sohn, a long-time LGBTQ activist with a history of hard-left advocacy on a wide range of controversial issues, has raised significant concerns among conservatives, especially with regard to how she may approach freedom of speech. Sohn’s nomination is also critical because her confirmation would break a 2-2 Republican/Democrat deadlock on the FCC and give Democrats the majority they need to act on hot-button issues such as net neutrality and media consolidation.
Under questioning before the Senate Commerce Committee, Sohn faced a skeptical Sen. Sullivan.
“I don’t even know where to begin here,” Sullivan said, before highlighting what he said were “very disturbing” and offensive comments that Sohn has either tweeted or re-tweeted.
“Look, we’re not nominating you for any normal assistant secretary,” he said. “You’re going to be an FCC commissioner – enormous power, particularly as it relates to free speech, particularly as it relates to liberty in our country.”
Based on her history of animus toward Republicans, Sullivan said he didn’t know how she could carry out her FCC duties in an unbiased manner.
He then proceeded to read several of Sohn’s tweets.
— “Fox News is state sponsored media, propaganda.”
— “Republicans know the only way they can win an election is to suppress the vote.”
— She also retweeted the following: “Your raggedly white supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing black people.”
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“Damn, that’s way out there,” Sullivan said. “Do you think most Republicans are racists and white supremacists?”
“Absolutely not Senator Sullivan,” Sohn replied, adding that she was “not familiar with that Tweet, but I’m happy to look at it.”
Sullivan: “Do you remember retweeting that one?”
Sohn: “I do not. I’ve tweeted probably over 10,000 times, so I don’t remember.”
Sullivan then said Americans are tired of nominees like Sohn.
“The number of Biden nominees who come out here and who have tweeted about Republicans being white supremacists and racists – it seems like that’s how you get nominated in this administration,” he said. “You’re one of them … people are just tired of this.”
Members of the Senate Commerce Committee have until Feb. 14 to submit any additional questions about Sohn’s nomination. She then has a week to respond. Sometime after her response the committee will vote on whether to recommend her nomination to the full Senate.
5 Comments
What I’m tired of is four years of trump appointing fringe rightists, obvious crooks and vandals, incompetent family members and yes men.
Your delusion is a sad but satisfying testimony of how the left is circling the drain. Its obvious you are struggling with reality.
Actually struggling to be a troll.
Sullivan is trying so, so hard to reinvent himself as a conservative before the election, but he’s been showing his cards for years now, and much of it has favored the left. At best he is two-faced.
How do you figure sullivan favored the left?