D.C. Memo: No Free Lunch for Carr's Social Media Trolls

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Carr: Warning to social media trolls: Brendan Carr will not be taking your shizzle sitting down. Case in point: A Dec. 27 X post by a group called the Revolving Door Project that suggested Carr, President-elect Trump's pick as FCC Chairman, was in the pocket of the GOP-connected Wiley Rein law firm. "Brendan Carr, selected for FCC Chair, wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the agency. It advocates for eliminating media ownership rules, and aligns with his background at Wiley Rein, a main FCC revolver law firm which has advised large telecom companies during billion-dollar mergers." Here's how Carr fired back. "I've been at the FCC since 2012, starting out as a GS career hire. In other words, I’ve been working at the FCC for over 12 straight years. If that’s a revolving door, then it is one that moves even slower than the synapsis in your brain." The Revolving Door Project's take on Carr should sound familiar. It's the same "conflict-of-interest" allegation used in an effort to discredit Republican Ajit Pai, Trump's first-term FCC Chairman, and his support for a light-touch approach to Internet regulation. Pai's alleged "conflict?” He had been an Associate General Counsel at Verizon from 2001 to 2003 – 14 years before he got the top job at the FCC. Attacks on Carr are starting to mount. Free Press is sending anti-Carr emails to raise funds. In a Dec. 3 solicitation, Free Press said it would expose "how [Carr] has gone after media outlets that Trump doesn't like – and showing how Carr is promising to give away billions to Elon Musk, end Net Neutrality and deep-six the agency’s diversity efforts." Carr has already said the FCC can't reverse the withholding of $885 million in RDOF money for Musk’s SpaceX and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit put FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's Net Neutrality rules on ice on Aug.1. On diversity, Carr has said he would discontinue the "promotion of DEI" after Rosenworcel said it was "the agency’s second-highest strategic goal."