FCC Commissioner Gomez Labels Trump Push to Chill Speech an ‘Administration-Wide Effort’

Although much of the recent focus regarding the press being under siege has been on President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez cited “an administration-wide effort” involving multiple agencies intended “to chill speech” and stifle dissenting voices. With the FCC under Trump’s handpicked Chairman, Brendan Carr, Commissioner Gomez has few avenues to formally push back against the Republican majority. Because of that, she said, it’s incumbent upon her to publicly push back against what she called a “campaign of censorship and control” carried out in part through “sham investigations against broadcasters because of their editorial decisions.” Noting that President Trump had previously fired Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, Commissioner Gomez conceded that she doesn’t know why she’s still in her position, before adding that any attempt to remove her before her term expires would be illegal. Explaining her goal, she said, “If I get fired, it isn’t because I didn’t do my job, it’s because I insisted on doing it.” She referenced Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes,” and the pressure brought to bear against its corporate parent Paramount Global, as an example of the work being done against journalists to “tone down their criticisms” of the Administration.