Sen. Ted Cruz Accuses FCC Nom Gigi Sohn of Failing to Disclose ‘Sweetheart Deal’ from Broadcasters

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) excoriated Joe Biden’s controversial nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Gigi Sohn, at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee earlier today, drawing attention to the suspicious timing of a favorable settlement made between TV broadcasters and Locast, a nonprofit where Sohn was a board member at the time.

This is the second hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on Sohn’s nomination, which has stalled due to growing concerns about her track record of partisan, far-left statements, her links to radical activists, and new information pointing to conflicts of interest that might force Sohn to recuse herself on a number of issues.

At the hearing, Sen. Cruz drew attention to a coalition of broadcasters mysteriously agreeing behind closed doors to reduce a $32 million settlement in a copyright dispute with Locast to $700,000, a day after the Biden administration announced its intent to nominate Sohn to the FCC.

“I’ve got to say, Ms. Sohn, the timing of the settlement stinks,” said Cruz.

“The Biden administration announced their intent to nominate you on October 26, 2021. A confidential settlement agreement was signed on October 27, 2021, the day after the intent to nominate. Your actual nomination was made on October 28, the next day, and on that day a public settlement was filed.”

“The public settlement claimed that the plaintiffs, ABC, NBC, CBS, were going to be paid $32 million, that they had $32 million in damages. What nobody knew at the time is that the secret settlement cut $32 million down to $700,000, that’s two cents on the dollar. I’ve litigated a lot of cases, I’ve settled a lot of cases, I don’t recall ever settling a case that my clients had won, that we had a victorious judgement, for two cents on the dollar. But you know what? I’ve never had a case against someone who was about to be the regulator of my industry. On the face of that, that’s a sweetheart deal.”

“I’ve been in the Senate ten years now,” continued Cruz. “I’ve never seen a nominee, for any regulatory board, who at the exact moment of her nomination, saw the companies that would be regulated by her effectively give a $31,300,000 gift to a company on whose board she sits. That is truly stunning and it’s disturbing.”

Ted Cruz to Biden FCC nom Gigi Sohn: "I've never seen a nominee for any regulatory board—who at the exact moment of her nomination—saw that the companies that would be regulated by her effectively give a $31,300,000 gift to a company on whose board she sits… truly stunning." pic.twitter.com/h3A7PfBbM4

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 9, 2022

The Texas Senator also touched on Sohn’s far-left, pro-censorship comments.

“The Biden administration has a pattern of abusing their power and getting struck down in court, over and over again.”

“You’ve demonstrated a hostility to conservative speech in particular, to Fox News in particular, and the FCC is a very dangerous place for a regulator to have the authority to silence views with which you disagree.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.