UPDATE The White House officially withdrew Gigi Sohn’s nomination to be an FCC Commissioner. Sohn asked the administration to withdraw the nomination after fighting for nearly two years against what she called a “concerted, coordinated campaign” to block her from filling the vacant Democratic seat at the agency, Inside Towers reported.
In her first interview since then, The Washington Post reported, Sohn said she stayed mostly quiet for over a year. But her plans began to change after speaking with the White House and a top Senate Democrat in the days before she eventually announced her withdrawal.
“They basically said, ‘There’s no path forward for you,’” Sohn said of her talks with Biden administration officials and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which was reviewing her nomination. “At that point, what was the point?”
A former Democratic FCC staffer and longtime consumer advocate, Sohn faced broad opposition from Senate Republicans and conservative groups who called her a partisan and criticized her past remarks on social media concerning policing and Fox News, Inside Towers reported.
Sohn said in addition to having to put her “life on hold” during the process as senators sparred over her pick, she was frustrated by her inability to speak out against ongoing rebukes. “The one thing you don’t do as a nominee is you don’t defend yourself … you’ve got to keep your mouth shut,” she said.
A White House official told the Post they “worked tirelessly to move Gigi’s nomination” and that at her hearings Sohn “had the chance to push back and dispel the misconceptions that dark money and influence were trafficking in.”
Sohn said the opposition took on a frightening new dimension in recent weeks after articles appeared on Fox News and in the The Daily Mail “clearly tied to QAnon themes about LGBTQ people.” If confirmed, Sohn would have been the first openly gay FCC commissioner. She felt the articles put her and her loved ones at risk.
Ultimately though, she said, it wasn’t the backlash that weighed on her most, but rather the lingering uncertainty around her bid. “It was more the limbo than anything else,” she said. “I owed a duty to me and my family to move on, and this was very, very difficult on me emotionally,” she said.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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