House Republicans are seeking to interview staff at the Federal Trade Commission as part of a larger investigation into FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan over whether she has abused her power and ignored federal ethics law.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability sent a letter to Khan on Monday demanding transcribed interviews with five senior staffers as part of a larger investigation into the commission and whether Khan violated due process and ignored federal ethics laws by failing to recuse herself from certain cases, such as the agency’s antitrust case against Meta.
“The Commission should be working to ensure what is best for consumers is achieved, not intervening on behalf of favored competitors or pursuing ideological goals,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) wrote.
The requested interviews include the leaders of the FTC’s economics, consumer protection, and competition branches, as well as a staffer at international affairs and the executive director.
Khan has been under scrutiny for several years due to her promotion of “hipster antitrust,” a regulatory stance that abandons the consumer welfare standard that guided U.S. antitrust policy for decades in favor of a much more skeptical approach that also considers other factors, such as corporate concentration and income inequality.
Comer and the committee have been investigating Khan since the summer of 2023, launching several investigations into the agency’s conduct and its rules over allegations that she was overstepping her authority. The committee filed requests in 2023 demanding communications between the FTC and European antitrust regulators after both decided to block the medical company Illumina’s $7 billion acquisition of medtech developer Grail.
Khan has made strides in trying to regulate mergers and acquisitions. She attempted to block major company mergers, such as Microsoft’s purchase of Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard, as well as Meta’s acquisition of the VR fitness app developer Within, only for her cases to fail in court.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his team have also filed several subpoenas to get interviews with more than 20 staffers at the FTC in an effort to “inform potential legislative reforms.” Khan responded in July, claiming that Jordan was organizing a “campaign to intimidate and harass” the agency’s career staff through emails seeking to interview them.
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Khan offered the agency’s senior staff for Jordan and the Judiciary Committee to interview, but they rejected the offer “without explanation,” an FTC official told Politico.
The FTC chairwoman appeared before Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee in July to defend her tenure and to justify a $160 million increase in the agency’s budget.
