Biden FCC commissioner pick Sohn withdraws
March 8, 2023
By Colin Mann
Gigi Sohn, US President Jo Biden’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission, has withdrawn her nomination to the post. The news was revealed by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a press briefing. Sohn blamed “unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks” on her character for her withdrawal.
“We appreciate Gigi Sohn’s candidacy for this important role,” Jean-Pierre said. The White House had no updates to share in respect to future candidates.
Sohn was originally nominated in October 2021, but failed to attract sufficient votes, being renominated by Biden at the beginning of January 2023 at the start of the new Congress. Her candidacy had been opposed in a number of quarters with the National Fraternal Order of Police issuing a statement in February 2023 opposing the nomination, contending that Sohn had “anti-police bias”, suggesting that her role on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group, should disqualify her from the role.
“When I accepted his nomination over sixteen months ago, I could not have imagined that legions of cable and media industry lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for surrogates, and dark money political groups with bottomless pockets would distort my over 30-year history as a consumer advocate into an absurd caricature of blatant lies,” Sohn wrote in a statement to The Washington Post. “The unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks on my character and my career as an advocate for the public interest have taken an enormous toll on me and my family.”