President Joe Biden infuriated Republican senators by elevating law professor Lina Khan to chair the Federal Trade Commission, and they're even angrier now that she's on the job.
GOP senators confirmed the outspoken anti-monopolist June 15, thinking she would be one of the agency's five commissioners, but Biden instead tapped her to lead the FTC -- and she has quickly moved to scale back corporate power to the frustration of Republicans and business leaders, reported Politico.
"American consumers, workers, and honest businesses depend on the Commission to champion a fair and thriving economy for all, and I am confident that we can deliver," Khan told agency employees last week in a memo.
Corporate leaders grew accustomed to meeting with FTC commissioners who they expected to green-light their proposed mergers, but the agency's two Republican commissioners, FTC veterans and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are frustrated by her changes.
"She doesn't care at all what we think," said one longtime staffer. "There's just no respect there."
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) accused Khan of engaging in a "progressive putsch," while the conservative Wall Street Journal has published at least six editorial and four op-eds since mid-June attacking the "32-year-old academic who has no experience running anything."
"American business should get ready," read one July opinion piece. "The Khan FTC is coming after you."
Khan has pushed to limit a wide range of corporate behavior, such as employee non-compete agreements and warranties that prohibit customers from repairing their own electronic devices, and the FTC gave her the authority, in a 3-2 party-line vote, to approve antitrust subpoenas without agreement from the other commissioners.
"With only a few months on the job, Lina Khan has proven she is committed to strengthening competition policy and taking on monopolies," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel and is drafting legislation to give the FTC more resources to challenge anti-competitive behavior.
Khan wrote letters early this month assuring lawmakers that she's not politicizing the agency, pointing to lawsuits and investigations against tech giants like Facebook that "were also priorities identified by the Trump administration."
"[Previous FTC chairs] defanged the commission, put economists in charge and made it an agent of monopolists," said Matt Stoller, a friend and former colleague of Khan's at the antimonopoly group Open Markets. "The Big Tech giants are all creations of those shifts. What Lina is doing is going back to the pre-1980s model."
