Commerce

Former Officials: FCC’s Independence ‘Obliterated’ Under Carr

The FCC now serves political interests instead of the public, former agency officials said.

Jericho Casper

Nov 12, 2025 — 3 min read

Screenshot (from left) of Tom Wheeler, Visiting Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution; Bob Corn-Revere, Chief Counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression; and Gigi Sohn, Executive Director of the American Association of Public Broadband, speak at Public Knowledge’s People’s Oversight Hearing in Washington on Wed., Nov. 12, 2025.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2025 – Former regulators and policy advocates accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr of having “obliterated” the FCC’s credibility as an independent, expert regulatory body.

Speaking at the People’s Oversight Hearing convened Wednesday by digital rights group Public Knowledge, experts examined whether the FCC could still serve the public interest or whether, as some argued, it had become too politically captured to function as an independent regulator.

Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who led the agency under President Obama, said the the FCC’s statutory independence had collapsed under Carr. “The FCC was designed to exist as an amphibian between the administration and Congress,” he said. “But when an authoritarian president steps in and overturns that balance, there are consequences.”

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Commerce FCC Public Knowledge Gigi Sohn AAPB Bob Corn-Revere Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Disney ABC Communications Act First Amendment Supreme Court FTC CFPB Brendan Carr Tom Wheeler Barack Obama