A bipartisan group of five former FCC Commissioners is the latest to publicly raise concerns about White House influence within the Commission’s operation under Chairman Brendan Carr, citing decades of precedent and a potential First Amendment violation.
The complaint, filed with the FCC by the Center for American Rights, stems from CBS airing different portions of a Kamala Harris interview across Face the Nation and 60 Minutes during the 2024 presidential campaign. Although the FCC Enforcement Bureau originally dismissed the complaint in January, it was reopened just days after the new presidential administration took office.
Former FCC Commissioners Rachelle B. Chong, Ervin S. Duggan, Alfred C. Sikes, Gloria Tristani, and former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler argue that the move departs from longstanding policy and precedent that has strictly limited government involvement in editorial news judgments. They further warn the proceeding signals an intent to use the FCC as a political tool to pressure broadcasters.
“This Administration has made no secret of its desire to revoke the licenses of broadcasters that cover it in ways the President considers unfavorable,” they wrote in comments filed with the FCC. “By reopening this complaint, the Commission is signaling to broadcasters that it will indeed act at the behest of the White House by closely scrutinizing the content of news coverage.”
The filing says that historically, the FCC has enforced its rarely used news distortion policy only in cases involving blatant fabrication or staged events, never over editorial decisions like content selection or editing. Between 1985 and 2019, the Commission found news distortion in only one case. The former Commissioners stress that no precedent supports action in a case like this one.
“The Commission on which we served, regardless of the party of its Chair or the policy agenda of the President, was an independent agency…dedicated to ensuring that the broadcast spectrum helped to create the marketplace of ideas that undergirds political debate,” they wrote. “To remain true to its mission, the Commission must close this proceeding without further action. To do otherwise would suggest that the Commission has been transformed into a tool of White House-driven speech suppression.”
Last week, current FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez issued another warning of her own during a town hall in Los Angeles, accusing the Trump administration of orchestrating a “coordinated campaign” to suppress dissent and control the press. Speaking on her “First Amendment Tour,” she alleged that federal agencies, including the FCC and FTC, are being weaponized to intimidate newsrooms, with corporate parents pressuring journalists to self-censor out of fear of regulatory retaliation.
