FCC boss Brendan Carr. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Rachelle Chong, a former Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, was sitting in her San Francisco home last week when an email landed in her inbox. An acquaintance flagged a bipartisan effort to submit comments in the “60 Minutes” news distortion case—a proceeding reopened by Donald Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr. Chong doesn’t usually wade into such fights. “It’s unusual for me,” she told me Wednesday. But her convictions—rooted in her days as a journalism student—pulled her in. “I have a very deep belief in the First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” she explained. After reviewing the document, Chong added her name.
She was far from alone.
In a rare and pointed act of bipartisan rebuke, five former FCC commissioners—including Chong—filed comments in the case’s docket Wednesday, urging Carr to immediately shut down the proceeding. Among the signatories: Alfred C. Sikes, the former Republican chair; Ervin Duggan, a Democratic commissioner appointed by George H. W. Bush; Gloria Tristani, a Bill Clinton appointee; and Tom Wheeler, who served as chair under Barack Obama.
The comments, filed by the Protect Democracy Project and obtained first by Status, condemned what the former commissioners described as…
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