Khan Accuses House Judiciary Committee of “Intimidating” Oversight

July 27th, 2023

FTC Chair Lina Khan is accusing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of launching a “campaign to intimidate and harass” career agency staff. 

What exactly is Chairman Jordan up to in targeting 23 FTC lawyers, half of whom are involved in merger negotiations?

Is Jordan preparing some kind of Star Chamber to chill agency staff to the bone? 

Or is Jordan going to get medieval on them, casting these lawyers into a dungeon with iron maidens, red hot pokers, and the rack? 

Actually, it is far worse than you can imagine … Jordan is threatening that if the FTC doesn’t allow his committee staff to interview mid-level, career attorneys – now would be the time to send the children out of the room – he will have to issue subpoenas.

In other words, Jordan is … my trembling fingers can barely type this … conducting oversight. Of a federal agency!

Chair Khan insists that before Chairman Jordan can interview these mid-level, career attorneys, he must first conduct exhaustive interviews of their supervisors. No doubt, these supes are well chosen for their willingness to deflect embarrassing or probing questions. Jim Jordan seems to have other ideas. He might be wondering, for example, why the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Khan has plunged in OPM ratings from the most highly rated agency in the government to one of the lowest, with employees telling pollsters that they have low regard for the “integrity” of agency leaders.

Jordan might ask how decades of robust but civil debate has been crushed from the top, with staff forbidden from sharing views with outside groups and even among themselves. Or he might ask how the Office of the Chair chokes internal dissent about Khan’s chimerical cases, a slew of which have been thrown out of federal court.

Jim Jordan is not the one here with something big to lose. It is more likely Chair Khan is afraid that these interviews will reveal that she is the one bringing on the chill with a side of intimidation.