The FCC has a new top enforcer. Chairman Brendan Carr has chosen Enforcement Bureau Chief of Staff and Deputy Bureau Chief Hunter Deeley to lead the department, as Patrick Webre moves into a senior role in the Office of the Managing Director.
Webre’s tenure atop the Enforcement Bureau included some of the FCC’s highest-profile pirate radio cases, among them a 20-year consent decree with a Boston-area operator that Radio Ink covered in July 2025.
Deeley joined the FCC as an Assistant Bureau Chief in 2023, then moved into his Chief of Staff and Deputy Bureau Chief post in mid-2025. As part of the Enforcement Bureau, Deeley has supervised enforcement matters touching on national security risks, coordinating closely with law enforcement and the US Intelligence Community.
Before the Commission, he worked in the US Department of Justice’s National Security Division, in its Foreign Investment Review Section, handling matters before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and Team Telecom, work that earned him multiple Assistant Attorney General Awards for Excellence. He also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, assigned to the General Crimes Section of its Superior Court Division and the National Security Section of its Criminal Division.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said, “I am pleased that Hunter has agreed to step up and lead the exceptional and dedicated Enforcement Bureau team. I’m confident that under his leadership, the team will continue to deliver great wins for the American people, from robocall enforcement to rooting out fraud to national security administration.”
Carr closed his statement by thanking Webre “for his outstanding service in this role.”
The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau shapes radio broadcasters’ compliance obligations in five main areas: Emergency Alert System participation and proper tone use, pirate radio enforcement against unlicensed operators and the property owners who host them, technical and facility rules covering towers, antenna structures, and operating power, public inspection file compliance, where repeat violations can escalate from a fine to a short-term rather than full-term license renewal, and annual EEO audits that now include added DEI-related questions under Chairman Carr.
License denials themselves run through the Media Bureau, but Enforcement’s investigations frequently trigger those actions.
