[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                        OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL
                            TRADE COMMISSION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                        THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-33

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-955                       WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                      COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking 
KEN BUCK, Colorado                       Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California           HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., 
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                   Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon                  MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California              CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina

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                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Thursday, July 13, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary 
  from the State of Ohio.........................................     1
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on 
  the Judiciary from the State of New York.......................     3

                                WITNESS

The Hon. Lina Khan, Chair, Federal Trade Commission
  Oral Testimony.................................................     5
  Prepared Testimony.............................................     7

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

All materials submitted for the record by the Committee on the 
  Judiciary are listed below.....................................   112

An Attorney Detail Report of Lina Khan, New York State Unified 
  Court System, Jul. 13, 2023, submitted by the Honorable Harriet 
  Hageman a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the 
  State of Wyoming, for the record
A letter from Lina Khan to the Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers, 
  Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from the State 
  of Washington and the Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Ohio, submitted by 
  the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee 
  on the Judiciary from the State of New York, for the record
A letter from Small Business Rising, Jul. 11, 2023, to the 
  Honorable Chair Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary, from the State of Ohio, and the Honorable Nadler, 
  Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State 
  of New York, submitted by the the Honorable Henry C. ``Hank'' 
  Johnson, Jr., a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from 
  the State of Georgia, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Adam Schiff, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California, for 
  the record
    An article entitled, ``Elon Musk, King of Censorship: 10 
        Times the `Free Speech Absolutist' Silenced Twitter 
        Users,'' Jun. 25, 2023, Yahoo News
    An article entitled, ``Twitter is complying with more 
        government demands under Elon Musk,'' Apr. 27, 2023, Rest 
        of the World
An article entitled, ``Ethics Official Owned Meta Stock While 
  Recommending FTC Chair Recuse Herself From Meta Case,'' Jun. 
  30, 2023, The Wall Street Journal, submitted by the Honorable 
  Madeleine Dean, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from 
  the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the 
  record
    An article entitled, ``Does Justice Alito Hear Himself?'' 
        Jun. 22, 2023, The New York Times
    An article entitled, ``Samuel Alito's Wife Leased Land to an 
        Oil and Gas Firm While the Justice Fought the EPA,'' Jun. 
        26 2023, The Intercept
    A collaborative letter to the Honorable Kevin McCarthy and 
        the Honorable Jim Jordan, Apr. 17, 2023
A report entitled, ``Assessment of Costs Associated with the 
  Implementation of the Federal Trade Commission Notice of 
  Proposed Rulemaking (RIN 2022-14214), CFR Part 463,'' May 2023, 
  Center for Automotive Research, submitted by the Honorable 
  Wesley Hunt, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from 
  the State of Texas, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jeff Van Drew, a Member of 
  the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New Jersey, 
  for the record
    An article entitled, ``Linda Khan Has Some Explaining to 
        do,'' Jul. 12, 2023, Americans for Tax Reform
    An article entitled, ``Khan Reveals That She `Handpicked' 
        Controversial Unpaid Consultants,'' Apr. 18, 2023, 
        Americans for Tax Reform

                 QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

Questions for the Hon. Lina Khan, Chair, Federal Trade 
  Commission, from the Honorables Darrell Issa from the State of 
  California, Scott Fitzgerald from the State of Wisconsin, Lance 
  Gooden from the State of Texas, Nathaniel Moran from the State 
  of Texas, Laurel Lee from the State of Florida, Harriet Hageman 
  from the State of Wyoming, Wesley Hunt from the State of Texas, 
  Ted Lieu from the State of California, Zoe Lofgren from the 
  State of California, and Mary Gay Scanlon from the State of 
  Pennsylvania, for the record
    A response from the Hon. Lina Khan, Chair, Federal Trade 
        Commission

 
                        OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL
                            TRADE COMMISSION

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, July 13, 2023

                        House of Representatives

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan 
[Chair of the Committee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Buck, Gaetz, 
Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Tiffany, Massie, Roy, 
Bishop, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Bentz, Cline, Gooden, Van Drew, 
Nehls, Moore, Kiley, Hageman, Moran, Lee, Hunt, Fry, Nadler, 
Lofgren, Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Schiff, Jayapal, Correa, 
Scanlon, Neguse, McBath, Dean, Ross, Bush, Ivey, and Balint.
    Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any 
time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on Oversight of 
the Federal Trade Commission. The Chair now recognizes the 
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald, to lead us in the 
Pledge of Allegiance.
    [Pledge of Allegiance.]
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. We begin today's 
hearing with what we normally do, with opening statements, and 
then we will get right to our witness. I appreciate Ms. Khan 
being with us--Chair Khan being with us today.
    At a speech in Berlin in 2022, Chair Khan told an audience 
that the challenges facing antitrust today were ``the result of 
a choice made 40 years ago to follow the misguided philosophy 
of people like Robert Bork.'' In other words, according to 
Chair Khan, the prevailing view over the last 40 years, a 
bipartisan view, shared over more than 20 Congresses, six 
Presidential Administrations, and adopted and developed by all 
50 States in their enforcement is now somehow wrong.
    Consider that over those 40 years, the U.S. economy grew 
from about a $3 trillion annual economy to $25 trillion and was 
the single greatest period of wealth creation in human history. 
Everyone who oversaw economic policy for those four decades, 
according to the Chair, was wrong. She knows better. She is 
trying to usher in a radical departure from the norms that made 
the American economy great to a system where her and her 
cronies have unchecked power over business practices in our 
country, untethered from any reasonable reading of precedent or 
statutory law.
    So, we should ask now, over the two-years into her tenure, 
how has her approach to antitrust in playing out as she heads 
one of those critical agencies in our government? The short 
answer is that it has been a disaster. She has pushed 
investigations to burden parties with vague and costly demands 
without any substantive follow-through or, frankly, logic for 
the request themselves. She centralizes the decisionmaking at 
the Commission within her office, eliminating any pretext of 
due process or transparency in that decisionmaking. Her 
approach is best characterized as one of intimidation, followed 
by inaction.
    The best example of this, which was only brought to light 
because of our work on the Weaponization Select Committee, was 
her targeted harassment of Twitter. After Mr. Musk bought the 
company, and following pressure from Democrat Senators, left-
wing activist groups, the FTC issued over 350 requests for 
information from Twitter. These requests included asking for 
every communication about Mr. Musk inside the company, and most 
troubling, for information about Twitter's work with 
journalists, working to shed light on the government-driven 
censorship practices that existed and I think in some cases 
still exist in big tech. In fact, we got a great court decision 
last week that talked about this, how pervasive this effort 
was, in a preliminary injunction from that Federal court in the 
Western District of Louisiana.
    Just this morning, though, in a filing in Federal court, we 
have learned that the situation is actually even worse than we 
could have imagined. This wasn't harassment. It was a 
shakedown. The FTC, as is common practice pursuant to the 
consent order, required Twitter to hire an independent 
assessor, an independent assessor whose legal obligation is to 
be truly independent and objective, not for one party or 
another. Well, it turns out objectivity was not what the 
Federal Trade Commission was interested in hearing.
    Here is what the filing said about Ernst & Young, the 
independent assessor hired in this matter.

        The FTC was so adamant with Ernst & Young conveying that this 
        is absolutely what you will do and this is going to occur and 
        you will produce a report at the end of the day that would be 
        negative about Twitter, that senior Ernst & Young leaders 
        feared that if Ernst & Young resigned as the independent 
        assessor, the FTC would take exception to their withdrawal and 
        create other challenges for Ernst & Young over time.

    This is not conjecture from Twitter. This is from sworn 
testimony of the independent assessor in the deposition itself 
taken just last month. This is outrageous. This is unacceptable 
and it is the kind of behavior that occurs in banana republics, 
not in the United States of America.
    So, it is no wonder Chair Khan has no interest in providing 
information to the people's representatives in the Congress, 
the people on this Committee when we ask for it.
    Today, the FTC has not fully complied with a single request 
for documents from this Committee. Because of her 
mismanagement, not even her own staff is impressed with Chair 
Khan's leadership.
    In 2020, the last year under Trump, the Trump 
Administration, 87 percent of FTC employees agreed that senior 
leaders maintain high standards. Under Chair Khan, that figure 
fell to 53 percent in 2021. It declined even further to 49 
percent in 2022. In 2020, 82 percent of surveyed FTC employees 
agreed that they have a high-level respect for the FTC senior 
leaders, again, under the Chairman, that figure plummeted to 49 
percent. These numbers were before it was revealed recently 
that the Chair was advised by FTC's Ethics Council to recuse 
herself from a major case. She did not recuse herself, and then 
appears to have misled Congress about taking that advice.
    We have a lot of questions today to get through. We look 
forward to the response from the Chair of the FTC. With that, I 
would yield to the gentleman from New York, the Ranking Member, 
for an opening statement.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, since you 
brought up Robert Bork, I must say that I have thought for the 
last 40 years that the court's unfortunate following of Robert 
Bork's doctrines, upending all prior understandings of 
antitrust law, has resulted in a terrible misinterpretation of 
antitrust law and is directly responsible for the over-
concentration of industry and the power of big business in 
today's economy.
    Mr. Chair, yesterday, the Director of the FBI sat at the 
witness table for nearly six hours, enduring a steady stream of 
baseless attacks and conspiracy theories meant to fit a far-
right narrative that may resonate on Fox News, but that lacks 
any basis in fact. Today, it is the Chair of the Federal Trade 
Commission's turn to step into the alternate universe that is 
the House Judiciary Committee under MAGA Republican leadership.
    Chair Khan, the last time you were here, you sat on this 
side of this table, helping to reinvigorate this Committee's 
work on antitrust matters, and I thank you for your service to 
the Committee. Unfortunately, I expect that today you will be 
the target of a barrage of personal attacks and wild 
accusations about the work of the FTC under your leadership.
    Republicans will tell us that the Commission is wasting 
resources, but the FTC has returned over $430 million to 
consumers under your watch and is vigorously enforcing the laws 
that Congress has entrusted to it. Meanwhile, it is the House 
Republicans who have wasted untold Congressional and agency 
staff resources, and millions of dollars, in pursuing a 
fruitless search for evidence of misconduct at the FTC.
    The majority will also argue that the FTC's investigation 
into Twitter was politically motivated and conducted at the 
behest of Congressional Democrats. This argument also has no 
basis in fact. Twitter has been in trouble for failing to 
adequately protect the privacy of its users for more than a 
decade. It has been subject to a consent decree on this topic 
since as far back as 2011. It came under a second consent 
decree last year. Given the haphazard conduct of its new owner, 
it may very well be subject to new scrutiny today.
    It is the FTC's duty to review compliance with these 
consent decrees, particularly when, as occurred last year, 
there are credible concerns that user data may have been 
compromised when the majority of its legal and engineering 
staff was fired. This work has nothing to do with the new owner 
of the company and his political views.
    Protecting user privacy is not political. Rushing to defend 
a company at all costs and investigating the agency that 
attempts to hold that company accountable, merely because the 
new owner shares your political views, is another matter.
    Ultimately, Chair Khan, you will face attacks today because 
you are doing your job and that is what threatens Republicans 
the most. The Federal Trade Commission was created and charged 
with enforcing antitrust and competition laws to respond to a 
rise in consolidation across the market in the early 1900s. It 
helped bring down the trust and lessen monopoly power, it 
strengthened the economy, and helped support the formation of a 
strong middle class.
    Unfortunately, in recent decades, the Executive Branch took 
a radical turn away from enforcement of the antitrust laws that 
kept us safe and prosperous for nearly a century. That failure 
led to massive consolidation across the market that gave rise 
to a handful of dominating companies with the power to squash 
competition.
    The rise of monopolies and monopsonies in several fields 
was a boom to the corporate class, but it has been devastating 
to consumers, workers, and small businesses. This began to 
change when the Biden Administration announced several steps to 
reinvigorate the enforcement of Federal antitrust laws. By 
faithfully interpreting the original intent of the antitrust 
laws and the FTC Act to ensure fair competition and prices, the 
administration has announced that the party is over for large 
and unfettered corporations. Although most Americans welcome 
this change, and indeed our economy is booming and unemployment 
is at a historic low, the commitment to enforcing these laws 
has raised alarm among our Republican colleagues so they have 
taken aim at your agency and the important work the FTC does to 
protect consumers and promote competition.
    I hope that my Republican colleagues will find it within 
themselves to put their baseless and often personal attacks on 
pause long enough to listen to the importance of your mission. 
In any event, I appreciate your appearing here today and I 
appreciate the valuable work of the FTC. I look forward to your 
testimony and I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Without objection, 
all opening statements will be included in the record.
    We will now introduce today's witness, Hon. Lina Kahn. Ms. 
Kahn is the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission. She was 
sworn in on June 15, 2021. We welcome our witness and thank her 
for appearing here today.
    We will begin by swearing you in. Will you please rise and 
raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of 
perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and 
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, 
so help you God?
    Let the record reflect the witness has answered in the 
affirmative. Thank you. Please know that your written 
testimony--you have seen this before. You sat behind the 
Chair--the former Chair before, so your written testimony will 
be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask 
that you summarize your testimony in five minutes, and we will 
be a little lax with that if you need a few extra.
    Chair Khan, you may begin, and then there will be 
questions.

                  STATEMENT OF CHAIR LINA KAHN

    Ms. Khan. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Nadler, and Members 
of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I 
am glad to join you to discuss the FTC's work to promote fair 
competition and protect Americans from unfair and deceptive 
practices.
    It is a particular honor to appear before this Committee 
where I had the great privilege of serving during its historic 
bipartisan investigation into digital markets and the power of 
large technology platforms.
    As this Committee knows well, there has long been a battle 
in this country between monopoly power and America's democratic 
institutions. Congress created the FTC in 1914 against the 
backdrop of an Industrial Revolution that had delivered 
significant technological advances, but also enabled intense 
consolidation. Given deep national unease about the unchecked 
powers that these monopolists could wield, lawmakers tasked the 
FTC with preventing unfair methods of competition and 
scrutinizing business practices through regular data collection 
and continuously building expertise.
    In the subsequent years, Congress has expanded our 
legislative mandates to include laws in protecting consumers. 
With each of these efforts, Congress has redoubled its 
commitment to fair competition and to rooting out unfair or 
deceptive business practices.
    At the FTC, our north star is fulfilling the important 
mandate that Congress has given us and doing all that we can to 
faithfully enforce the laws and safeguard America's citizens 
and businesses from harmful and even dangerous concentrations 
of private power that characterize significant swaths of our 
economy today.
    I am endlessly impressed by the talent and tenacity of the 
FTC teams especially in the face of ongoing resource 
constraints and legal challenges to our authority. Over the 
past 24 months, the FTC has moved to challenge major 
transactions that would have eroded competition in critical 
sectors of the economy including defense, semiconductors, 
energy, digital markets, and pharmaceuticals.
    We are tackling anticompetitive practices including those 
that harm American farmers, small businesses, and workers. Last 
year, the FTC in a bipartisan coalition of ten State Attorneys 
General, charged the two largest pesticide manufacturers with 
unlawful schemes that prevented farmers from having access to 
cheaper products, costing them billions of dollars.
    In January, the FTC proposed a rule that would ban 
employers from imposing noncompete restrictions that lock in 
workers and collectively depress their wages by up to $300 
billion, while also depriving startups and businesses of the 
employees they need to expand and compete. In the months since 
proposing this rule, we have received over 21,000 public 
comments including from nurses and doctors, fast food workers, 
and hairdressers who all told us about how noncompetes had hurt 
their livelihoods and undermined their economic liberty. 
Already several enforcement actions by the FTC have led firms 
to drop noncompete restrictions imposed on thousands of 
workers.
    The FTC also continues to use its tools to conduct market-
wide inquiries. Last June, the Commission launched an inquiry 
into the practices of pharmacy benefits managers to shed light 
on the opaque operations of these large, middlemen who can 
dictate pricing and access to life-saving drugs for millions of 
Americans. This inquiry follows thousands of public comments 
the FTC received explaining the real-life costs that can follow 
from PBM's current practices. One doctor, for example, 
recounted how delays in PMB approvals caused her patient to 
develop resistance when otherwise effective treatment 
ultimately leading to the needless loss of her patient's eye.
    In addition to these critical areas of work, we are 
redoubling our efforts to protect Americans' privacy and combat 
fraud, while also activating additional authorities that 
Congress has given us. We have brought actions to protect 
consumers from Made in USA fraud, protect military families 
from predatory financing, and protect addiction recovery 
patients from deception.
    We are fighting to protect the security of people's 
sensitive personal data and have obtained record monetary 
judgments including the largest ever judgment to protect 
children's privacy.
    The Commission has also proposed rules to address some of 
the most widespread scams like government impersonation fraud, 
Made in USA fraud, and fake online reviews. The Agency is 
tackling junk fees plaguing American consumers and scrutinizing 
dark patterns that trick people into incurring unwanted charges 
or surrendering sensitive data. Our Click to Cancel proposal 
would require companies to make it as easy to cancel a 
subscription as it is to sign up for one.
    The FTC is also committed to fighting for people's right to 
repair their own products. The FTC has brought several major 
actions against companies for imposing unlawful repair 
restrictions, hurting customers, and independent shops alike. 
In other words, the FTC is firing on all cylinders, fighting 
every day to protect the American people from unlawful business 
practices. These efforts reflect the extraordinary work of our 
agency staff whose talent and dedication are second to none.
    It is a deep honor to serve in this role and I am 
enormously proud to see how our enforcement actions and policy 
work are materially helping Americans in their day-to-day 
lives. In the aggregate, our work helps promote the open, 
competitive, resilient markets that have been the bedrock of 
America's economic success and dynamism throughout our Nation's 
history.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today 
and I am happy to answer your questions.
    [The prepared statement of the Chair Khan follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Madam Chair. We will now move to 
five-minute questioning. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady 
from Wyoming.
    Ms. Hageman. Like other Federal agencies, the FTC has a 
Designated Agency Ethics Official, known as DAEO. On April 18, 
2023, you testified before a Subcommittee of the House Energy 
and Commerce Committee. At the hearing, Chair Rodgers asked 
you, ``Are there any instances where you have not followed the 
DAEO's advice?'' You responded, ``no'' and you followed up by 
saying that you, ``Have consulted with the DAEO and taken 
actions that are consistent with the legal statements that DAEO 
has made.''
    On June 16, 2023, a Bloomberg journalist published a leaked 
memoranda written by the FTC's DAEO analyzing Chair Khan's 
ability to sit as a judge in the FTC's review of a meta 
acquisition of a company called Within. According to the ethics 
memoranda, the DAEO ``recommended you recuse to avoid an 
appearance of partiality concern pursuant to Federal ethics 
regulations.''
    Do you believe that you were completely honest and 
forthcoming with Congress when you asked if there were ``Any 
instances where you would not follow the DAEO's advice?'' You 
answered ``no.'' Yes or no?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Hageman. OK. In the letter that you sent to this 
Committee yesterday evening, you claimed that you received only 
oral advice from the DAEO, but never saw the leaked memo until 
after you decided not to recuse yourself.
    First, it is unbelievable to me that you would not ask for 
written ethics advice on this particular topic. You admit that 
you have written ethics advice on other topics, but on this 
topic, you claim you did not see the written memo. Instead, you 
want us to believe that you only received oral advice and not 
specific oral advice, but only general advice on 
``understanding the legal framework.''
    Did DAEO give you advice that is different than what was 
written in the memoranda?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks for the question, Congresswoman. So, my 
work before I joined the Commission was focused on assessing 
the power of large technology--
    Ms. Hageman. I need you to answer the question that I 
asked. The question that I asked was did you receive different 
oral advice than what was written in the memoranda from DAEO, a 
very simple question.
    Ms. Khan. So, I consulted with the ethics official. The 
ethics official, as was noted in the memo that you cited, 
although I did not receive that memo, noted that the ultimate 
framework for instances in which somebody has no financial 
conflicts of interest--
    Ms. Hageman. Did she give you different oral advice than 
what was in the written memoranda, yes or no?
    Ms. Khan. --the legal framework is for the employee to 
themselves determine whether they should or should not recuse. 
That was--
    Ms. Hageman. Did she give you different advice than what 
was--orally than was in the written memoranda, yes or no?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, as was noted in the written 
memoranda, there was no ethics violation created by my 
participating in the matter--
    Ms. Hageman. You didn't follow the DAEO's advice, did you? 
You could have recused at any time, couldn't you?
    Ms. Khan. I followed the determination that there was no 
ethics violation--
    Ms. Hageman. You could have recused at any time, couldn't 
you?
    Ms. Khan. There was no violation under the ethics laws 
because I have not a penny in financial stock, not a penny in 
financial interests relating to--
    Ms. Hageman. The DAEO gave you the advice to recuse, and 
you did not do so, correct?
    Ms. Khan. Congresswoman, as was noted in the memo, as I 
noted--
    Ms. Hageman. I am going to move on since you are not 
willing to answer my question. I read your four-page letter 
which was nothing more than a front to your obligation of 
honesty, integrity, and candor before this tribunal, but is 
owed by every public servant. I would reference Part 2635 of 
the Code of Federal Regulations which describes your ethics 
standards. I want to note that the ethics standards are 
actually higher than one owed by lawyers which brings me to my 
next point.
    Do you expect lawyers at the FTC to follow Federal ethics 
rules?
    Ms. Khan. Of course, everybody at the Federal Trade 
Commission--
    Ms. Hageman. Do you expect lawyers at the FTC to be an 
active member, in good standing of a bar of the United States?
    Ms. Khan. If they are practicing as a lawyer, they need to 
be in good standing and follow the bar rules.
    Ms. Hageman. I understand that you were admitted to the New 
York bar on July 16, 2020, but in 2019 and 2020, according to 
your Senate questionnaire, you held yourself out as Counsel for 
the Democrats on this very Committee. You used this title, but 
you were not licensed to practice law. Counsel is a term 
reserved for lawyers, licensed lawyers. In Wyoming, a person 
who in any manner holds themselves as competent to practice law 
without a license to do so is guilty of unauthorized practice 
of law.
    I believe the law in the District of Columbia where you 
held yourself out is similar. Do you believe it is appropriate 
for non-lawyers to claim the title of counsel?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, when I had the honor to work for 
this Committee, I complied with all the document requests that 
the H.R. folks requested, including documentation about the 
fact that I--
    Ms. Hageman. When I checked your registration status this 
morning, I learned that you were not in good standing with the 
New York bar. Your license is listed as delinquent, which means 
you have failed to file your biennial registration and it means 
that you have not been paying your bar dues, completing your 
continuing legal education, and maintaining your law license. I 
believe it is shown on the screen. It also means you are 
subject to referral for disciplinary action. I find this 
situation to be stunning and a reflection on your ethics. With 
that, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the Ranking Member from New York for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Nadler. I find the statement of the gentlelady from 
Wyoming incredible. Will the Republican staff all commit to 
recusing themselves from any matters that relate to their work 
on the Committee? Because that is the standard they are holding 
Chair Kahn to?
    Chair Khan, thank you for coming before our Committee 
today. Under your tenure, the Commission has returned over $430 
million to consumers and proposed a ban on noncompete 
agreements that would increase workers' earnings by nearly $300 
billion a year, would save consumers up to $148 billion in 
healthcare costs, and would close racial and gender wage gaps 
by between 3.6 and 9.1 percent.
    What are some other ways that the Commission supports a 
strong economy?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks for the question, Congressman. So, our 
work on the antitrust side is focused on ensuring robust 
competition. This has involved blocking mergers that we believe 
would have eroded competition including in the defense 
industry, including in healthcare. We have brought a set of 
lawsuits alleging that certain types of hospital mergers would 
have deprived Americans of access to quality affordable 
healthcare. We have a whole set of work underway focused on the 
fact that all too often drug prices are way too expensive for 
American people and we are scrutinizing the ways in which 
potentially unlawful practices may be contributing to those 
high prices.
    We are also hearing directly, day in and day out, from 
small businesses, from independent grocers, independent 
pharmacists, franchisees, about the ways in which the FTC's 
work can help ensure that they have a robust open opportunity 
to compete in the marketplace and make sure that Americans are 
benefiting from robust competition.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you, and you have made it clear that 
antitrust enforcers like your own agency must be more active in 
enforcing the law and bringing high-impact cases, even if those 
cases ultimately are unsuccessful.
    Can you expand on this for us and share what you think 
having a strong cop on the beat is essential to a fair 
marketplace?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks, Congressman. I have been very clear that 
my worry has been about under enforcement. Unfortunately, I 
think there were missed opportunities in the last few decades 
where all too often entire sectors were allowed to consolidate. 
That has now created markets that are closed off to 
competition.
    Recently, the Defense Department has been noting how this 
consolidation is also now directly undermining national 
security with significant consolidation in the defense 
industrial base is harming our military and making it more 
difficult for us to compete globally. These are just some of 
the harms that we have seen from consolidation. Because of 
that, we think it is incredibly important to be vigorously 
enforcing the laws that Congress has charged us with enforcing. 
This includes the FTC's act prohibition on unfair methods of 
competition. It includes the Clayton Act. It includes the 
Sherman Act. There have been provisions of these statutes that 
unfortunately have been left dormant and we are fully committed 
to reinvigorating the law and make sure that we are fully 
enforcing all the provisions that Congress has charged us with 
enforcing.
    Mr. Nadler. I assume you also enforce the Celler-Kefauver 
Act. I know that you also support bringing court actions 
instead of reaching a settlement under consent decree with a 
company that has broken the law. Why is this?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, we assess every matter on a 
case-by-case basis. On the antitrust side, we have seen, 
unfortunately, instances in which certain remedies that were 
achieved in merger settlements unfortunately fail to fully 
protect competition in the way that the agencies are required 
to do under the law, so certain behavioral commitments that 
firms made, or certain divestitures really fail to preserve the 
competition that we are charged with safeguarding.
    As a result, we are learning from that experience and 
adjusting and modifying where needed. In some cases, that means 
bringing a lawsuit if a remedy that is being offered and we 
don't believe will fully resolve the underlying competitive 
harm. In other instances, it means really improving and 
strengthening and tightening up the remedies that we are 
achieving. So, it really depends on a case-by-case basis.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Despite claims from the Majority 
that you did not follow ethics guidance, we know for a fact 
that under the law you have no conflicts of interest that would 
require you to recuse yourself, correct?
    Ms. Khan. Correct.
    Mr. Nadler. Indeed, the designated ethics official 
instructed you correctly that the decision to recuse yourself 
was a personal one that you are charged to make, correct?
    Ms. Khan. That is right.
    Mr. Nadler. You also spoke of the General Counsel's Office 
who also stated that you do not have a conflict of interest 
that would require your recusal, correct?
    Ms. Khan. That is right, correct.
    Mr. Nadler. You do not own any stock in any corporation or 
have any personal ties that would require you to recuse 
yourself, correct?
    Ms. Khan. I have not a penny in any individual firm's 
stock, correct.
    Mr. Nadler. The Federal Trade Commission plays a critical 
role in protecting consumers, ensuring competition, and 
enforcing the laws we have entrusted to it. The agency has done 
this work for over a hundred years, and I appreciate that it 
will continue to do so under your leadership.
    Finally, Mr. Chair, before I yield back, I ask unanimous 
consent to enter into the record a copy of a letter from Lina 
Khan to Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and yourself.
    Chair Jordan. Wow. I appreciate it. That is fine. Without 
objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Kiley. Good morning, Ms. Khan. A few days ago, you lost 
another case. This was your challenge to the Activision 
acquisition. The Northern District of California, in the 
opinion by a Biden appointee, denied your request for a 
preliminary injunction. After what the court called voluminous 
pre- and post-hearing written submissions, the court found you 
are not likely to succeed on the merits.
    You seem to be losing quite a bit, and I don't say that to 
be disrespectful, but these are, after all, taxpayer funds. You 
are now zero for four in merger trials. The average win rate 
for the FTC in the modern antitrust era is around 75 percent. 
So, I have to ask, why are you losing so much?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks for the question, Congressman.
    I should note, first, that the FTC has some of the best 
litigators around. In the very trial that you mentioned, it was 
just phenomenal to see, and the judge herself, personally, 
commented on how the fact that the FTC, despite being totally 
out-resourced by some of these companies, was really able to go 
toe-to-toe in terms of legal talent and skill. I'm enormously 
proud of our litigators.
    Mr. Kiley. Well, I'm not sure the taxpayers are going to 
take much delight in the legal talent and skill of enforcement 
actions that cost great taxpayer dollars and end in defeat. So, 
the question is, why is your track record so poor when it comes 
to actually winning cases?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we've had significant success in the 
courts. There are a whole set of matters, including our case 
against Martin Shkreli, where the court found resoundingly in 
the FTC's favor; also, banned Martin Shkreli for life from the 
pharmaceutical industry. We also had a recent--
    Mr. Kiley. OK. You're zero for four in merger trials. So, 
when I was trying to figure out what is going on here, I found 
maybe a clue in an article from The New York Times, December 7, 
2022, which reported comments you made at a conference where 
you said this. You said,

        If there's a law violation and agencies think that current law 
        might make it difficult to reach, there's a huge benefit to 
        still trying.

She added that any courtroom losses would signal to Congress 
that lawmakers need to update antitrust laws to better suit the 
modern economy.

        I'm, certainly, not somebody who thinks that success is marked 
        by a 100 percent court record.

So, this raises the question, Chair Khan, are you losing on 
purpose?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, the key clause in the quote you 
mentioned was ``if there is a law violation.'' We only bring 
cases when the facts before us lead us to believe that there is 
a law violation under the existing laws.
    On the merger front, there are a whole set of cases where 
we've won, including in instances where the parties abandoned 
and walked away after they filed the complaint.
    Mr. Kiley. OK. You are zero for four in merger trials. So, 
what did you mean when you said that any courtroom losses would 
signal to Congress that lawmakers need to update the antitrust 
laws? What does that mean?
    Ms. Khan. So, there is an institutional dialog, right, 
between enforcers, between Congress, between the courts. 
There's a century worth of antitrust back-and-forth between the 
agencies, between Congress. This very Committee, in the 1950s, 
determined that the agencies were not bringing the types of 
cases that Congress was worried about in terms of monopoly 
power.
    Mr. Kiley. OK, but you're actually bringing the cases. 
You're losing because you don't have the authority that you 
want from Congress. So, this is how you think you're going to 
persuade Congress to give you more authority, is by exceeding 
the authority that you now have?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, again, we only bring lawsuits where 
we believe there is a law violation, given the facts and the 
law at hand. We fight hard when we believe that there is a law 
violation, and unfortunately, things don't always go our way. 
We make determinations about--
    Mr. Kiley. Are you bringing cases that you expect to lose?
    Ms. Khan. Would you repeat that?
    Mr. Kiley. Are you bringing cases that you expect to lose?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Kiley. OK. Well, your track record seems to suggest 
otherwise.
    Let's look more closely at the Activision decision, though. 
The court first noted that, in an attempt to lower your burden, 
you, essentially, made up case law. You couldn't find anything 
actually that the courts have provided in terms of precedence. 
So, you cited to your own FTC decision as precedent.
    Irrespective of the legal standard, the court--you probably 
wouldn't have won under any standard because the court said 
this:

        The FTC has not raised serious questions regarding whether the 
        proposed merger is likely to substantially lessen competition . 
        . . . Not raised serious questions.

    The court also rejected your assertion--not only rejected 
your assertion of a likely anticompetitive effect, but found 
just the opposite, that the record evidence points to more 
consumer access.
    So, why should Americans have faith in your judgment, when 
this Biden-appointed judge says you are so far off the mark?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, this matter is still pending before 
the FTC in administrative adjudication. So, I'm just going to 
be limited in what I can say about the merits.
    Our complaint lays out the staff's view of what this merger 
would result in and why that would be a law violation. You 
may--
    Mr. Kiley. The judge roundly rejected it and said there 
weren't even serious questions. Now, having lost, you're 
spending even more taxpayer money on an appeal that you're even 
less likely to win, because the appeals court is going to defer 
to the trial court's findings of fact in this very fact-
intensive matter. So, why are you spending even more taxpayer 
resources pursuing this appeal?
    Ms. Khan. So, I can say, again, this was a staff 
recommendation. I can say, in a general matter, staff always 
looks closely at an opinion and looks at whether there are 
certain errors in law that they believe are worth appealing on. 
Those are, in general, the types of determinations that go into 
whether the FTC ends up appealing.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Khan, thank you for being here and for putting up 
with some of the questions you've been asked.
    Yesterday, FBI Director Wray sat here for almost five hours 
and put up with continual questions attacking his patriotism, 
his judgment. It was really amazing the hypocrisy that was 
shown.
    The issue was weaponization of the FBI. Yet, every Member 
of this panel who was here on January 6, 2021, knows that the 
government was weaponized on that day--as I said, nuclearized--
to take over the government, to overthrow the government, in 
contradiction of the oath of office that each of us had taken. 
We have learned that certain Members of this Committee went and 
met with Donald Trump and that they were participating in the 
overthrow of our government, the nuclearization/weaponization 
of our government.
    Yet, they had the chutzpah, the audacity, the lack of 
integrity to question Wray's judgment, and went on and on. I 
was sorry, I came in here today and I'm sorry--
    Mr. Issa. Is the gentleman accusing us of a lack of 
integrity?
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chair, if you would ask whoever it is to 
shut up?
    Mr. Issa. I'm sure the Chair will rule when he comes back.
    Mr. Cohen. I was surprised when I came in today and I heard 
some questions about your relationship with the Bar 
Association. Hey, you don't talk about rope in a house where a 
man's been hung. You don't ask about membership in the Bar 
Association on a Judiciary Committee, where there are Members 
who never passed the bar and aren't members of the Bar, and 
they are Members of this Committee in good standing. So, we 
need to get beyond the hypocrisy and realize where we are and 
don't raise such subjects.
    Chair Khan, let me ask you this: The Federal Trade 
Commission deals in issues that protect consumers. 
Subscriptions to magazines, to services, on subscription 
services for media are everywhere and you can subscribe to them 
easily. It's hard to unsubscribe. It's difficult to find that 
spot. This has been a problem to consumers, and the companies 
just make money hand over fist, as people give up on trying to 
unsubscribe or cancel their membership.
    What steps is the FTC taking to reel in these predatory 
practices?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, you're absolutely right. We have 
a complaint data base where we hear directly from consumers. 
Oftentimes, we hear about significant frustrations about these 
subscriptions that are very easy to sign up for, but 
effectively impossible, in some cases, to fully cancel.
    We've brought enforcement actions, including a case we 
brought against Vonage last year. We also recently proposed a 
rule--it's our click-to-cancel rule--that requires that 
companies make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to 
sign up for one. We've been collecting public comments. We're 
going to look closely at the record and determine how to 
proceed.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you for that.
    I had a bundle with Disney, Hulu, and ESPN 26, or 
something. I tried to get out of that bundle and just do Hulu. 
Whatever it is, I'm being charged for both of them. I've given 
up. I've just tried to cancel and it's just too much. It needs 
to be easy.
    Ms. Khan. That's right. We've also seen through our work 
that companies sometimes use what are known as ``dark 
patterns.'' These are these manipulative design techniques that 
are designed to trick people into either signing up for 
unwanted services or that make it very difficult to cancel or 
opt out of something. So, those manipulative design tactics are 
very much on our radar.
    Mr. Cohen. Another consumer, anticonsumer practice is 
robocalls. I've heard about it forever. It bothers me; it 
bothers so many people to get these robocalls and asking you to 
sign up for this or sign up for that, and to speak, and they 
get you.
    This is also the FCC, maybe, but what is the FTC doing to 
help us with these deceptive calls?
    Ms. Khan. So, we work hard on this one. One thing that 
we've been thinking about is, how can we be most effective and 
efficient with our resources? We've been looking upstream at 
the voice over internet protocol providers, who sometimes are 
helping facilitate or enable these robocalls. So, we've brought 
a whole set of enforcement actions against them to have a more 
deterrent impact and really protect consumers from these 
unwanted calls.
    Mr. Cohen. Have you tried to encourage or help companies--
the public, where antitrust actions could give them more 
choices and better prices?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, I thank you for what you're doing.
    By the way, do you have any books that you checked out from 
the library that are overdue? No.
    Ms. Khan. Not that I can--
    Mr. Cohen. The public really cares about that. That's 
important.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Cohen. I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from California is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    On behalf of the Committee, for the work that your 1,600-
plus full time equivalents do on areas like thwarting robocalls 
and your efforts to promote the right to repair, I want to 
thank the people at the FTC.
    Our beef, though, is not with much of the good work you do, 
much of which, as you said to Mr. Kiley, is successful when you 
litigate.
    Our problem here today, my problem here today is that 
you're a bully. You have half a billion dollars to spend, and 
you choose to spend it promoting a policy that, when you were a 
staffer sitting behind us, you seemed to be very much into. I 
believe you've taken the idea that companies should have to be 
less competitive to merger; that every merger has to be somehow 
bad for the company and good for the consumer--a standard that 
cannot be met.
    I will take, for example, Illumina, a situation in which 
they have had the audacity to tell you that a company that they 
spun off, but still held major assets in, that has to be 
reacquired, so that a breakthrough, noncompetitive drug, a 
technology of detection of cancer could be promoted more 
quickly--one which has no current competitor; one which is not 
on the market.
    Yet, you decided that a company with a market cap of about 
10 percent that of Pfizer somehow would be anticompetitive if 
it assimilated a new--took on something that would be new, that 
they had helped internally produce before spinning it off. 
You're failing in that; you're going to fail.
    You, then, took on Microsoft. Microsoft is a big, big 
company. Everybody up here seems to want to beat on anyone that 
has over a trillion-dollar market cap. When you served on the 
Committee, you were big on, if you were over a trillion 
dollars, we need to break you up or stop you.
    However, that merger that you lost the other day is one in 
which a protected market that's Sony enjoys in Japan, a company 
that is already larger, needs competition. The reality is we 
are a global market, and you are thinking only of who you want 
to go after for some reason.
    I cannot find your logic, and I believe that it begins at 
the top. When you blamed your staff and said staff decisions, 
shame on you. The fact is you run this organization, and its 
left turn came when you took over, not with the staff, many 
whom would have already been there.
    Now, one of the things beyond Illumina that gets me is--and 
this is my question to you--if cancer patients die because you 
had blocked the merger, which you didn't because they went 
forward over your objections, and will continue to fight you, 
if cancer patients die because they don't have the money to 
bring this technology forward, where has the consumer 
benefited?
    I know that you are going to say Illumina is currently 
pending; we're still working on it; I can't answer. It's 
interesting, you can answer yes or no to the Democrats, but you 
can never simply to us. I'll get you a chance.
    If something is not on the market, and an organization of 
two companies say we want to merge to bring something to the 
market, where does the FTC see anticompetitiveness? Briefly, if 
you can answer.
    Ms. Khan. Before I answer, I should just note, if anybody 
asks me on either side about an ongoing matter--
    Mr. Issa. No, no. Please answer my question.
    Ms. Khan. --I will not be able--
    Mr. Issa. My time is limited.
    Ms. Khan. I will not be able to answer about ongoing 
adjudicative proceedings.
    Mr. Issa. OK.
    Ms. Khan. Relating to the matter that you mentioned, I was 
not at the Commission when it was voted out. There was a recent 
Commission opinion. In that opinion, we lay out our view--that 
was voted out unanimously--we laid out our view about how the 
antitrust laws apply in nascent markets. There is significant 
case law around how it's incredibly important to be protecting 
competition, not just in well-established markets, but 
especially in nascent markets.
    Mr. Issa. OK. So, let's go back through this. Your opinion, 
the opinion, whether you inherited it or not, that you seem to 
bear, is that in the future there could be a failure to have 
competition in a market that has not yet occurred. If people 
have to meet a standard of your hypothetical market will not 
develop because we--``we''--have to predict the future, if your 
ability to predict the future is so good, how is it you could 
not predict that you were going to lose four out of four cases? 
How is it you can predict the future of markets, when, in fact, 
the stock market can't even do it?
    I would contend that you have overstepped your boundaries 
and your half-billion dollar budget is being wasted. I, for 
one, will not support your $160 million increase as long as you 
do not stick to those things, which you do well, for which the 
FTC has the responsibility, and for those robocalls that, in 
fact, you have never managed to stop.
    With that, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to commend my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle in the 118 Congress in diversifying the membership on 
their side of the aisle, but, frankly, we haven't done enough. 
They have not done enough. They can't do enough at this point.
    It reflects in the treatment that a witness such as 
yourself, Chair Khan, receives from this Committee. When a 
witness comes in, sitting so low at that table in front of all 
these interrogators, it's a daunting look. The American people 
can see it.
    When we treat a witness who looks like you with the 
politics of personal destruction, and when we only attack 
witnesses who look like you with allegations of incompetence 
and a lack of ability to lead their agency, it's indicative of 
the need for this Committee to reflect what the American people 
look like.
    I want to appreciate you today for withstanding what you 
have had to endure thus far, and we've only begun.
    I will say this, Chair Khan, Americans rely on regulations 
to protect consumers and workers in this country. The Federal 
Trade Commission should be as aggressive in its enforcement as 
the circumstances dictate.
    Today, in America, there are only four large corporate 
conglomerates that control the market for beef, pork, and 
poultry. Consolidation in the meat packing industry shows up at 
the grocery store, resulting in inflation for consumers and at 
the same time, coincidentally, record high profits for the 
corporate conglomerates who are soaking those profits from the 
American people.
    A single company controls most of the web searching and a 
single company controls nearly half of all e-commerce. That's 
too much power in the hands of too few corporations, and they 
can hike prices with little recourse. They control vast amounts 
of personal data. Consumers are being squeezed by consolidation 
in almost every aspect of the marketplace--from food production 
to hospitals.
    So, I'm glad to see that you are using your position to 
strongly enforce antitrust laws to ensure fair competition and 
prices. Moreover, we are lucky to have an FTC Chair who does 
not have personal or monetary conflicts of interest that would 
require her to recuse herself from cases involving big tech 
companies. That is good thing. Because of that, Chair Khan is 
able to lead an agency that is properly investigating companies 
like Amazon, Meta/Facebook, and Twitter. I'm glad that we do 
not have the fox guarding the henhouse and that we, instead, 
have an FTC that is actively working to protecting American 
consumers.
    Now, I want to ask you, Chair Khan, pharmacy benefit 
managers manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of large 
insurers, large employers, and other payers. However, this 
middleman role allows PBMs to artificially inflate the prices 
of drugs that individuals must pay for critical medications, 
resulting in consumers having to pay almost 20 percent more for 
generic drugs. The market for PBMs is an area of the market 
that is highly consolidated with just three PBMs controlling 79 
percent of the market.
    What can the Commission do to ensure the market for 
pharmacy benefit managers is competitive and fair, so that 
Americans can afford their prescription drugs?
    Ms. Khan. This is an area where we're looking very closely. 
We issued a policy statement last year, unanimously, noting 
some of our concerns in the pharmacy benefit management space.
    In addition to the consolidation that you mentioned, we've 
also seen vertical integration. So, these PBMs have also now 
expanded into insurance. Sometimes they're competing with the 
very pharmacies that are dependent on them. We've heard that 
this can create conflicts of interest. We've also heard that 
these PBMs demand rebates in ways that may be denying patients 
access to more affordable drugs.
    So, we have put the market on notice that we are looking at 
these practices closely. If we find law violations, we won't 
hesitate to act.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous--
    Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I have a unanimous consent request.
    Chair Jordan. We will do the point of order, and then, I 
will come to your unanimous consent.
    Mr. Issa. Mr. Chair, I waited for the gentleman to complete 
his time, but I must raise a point of order that I, personally, 
felt that he was referring to all Republicans, but particularly 
to me, for his comments about diversity and his comments about 
our treating the witness, apparently, because of the color of 
skin, which happens to be similar to my Brown skin. I would ask 
that this portion of his testimony be taken down as 
inappropriate and argumentative to, and making a racial slur 
against, myself and other Members of the Congress, who, by the 
way, yesterday treated what I would call a very White man of a 
greater age very similarly.
    Ms. Jayapal. Is this a point of order, Mr. Chair, or is 
this a speech?
    Chair Jordan. I don't think the gentleman's point of order 
has been stated in a timely fashion. It's supposed to happen 
right after the statement--
    Mr. Issa. Then, I withdraw my point of order, but not my 
objection.
    Chair Jordan. Well, I would just point out we should all 
engage in proper decorum, not disparage colleagues, not 
disparage people in the government, not disparage anyone. So, 
let's just keep that in mind.
    With that, I know we have got a unanimous consent request.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I would move for the entry of a letter from Small Business 
Rising to yourself, as well as to the Ranking Member, Jerrold 
Nadler, into the record, without objection.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I would also like to take, if the 
Chair will allow me to, the opportunity to simply clarify to my 
friend--
    Chair Jordan. Briefly.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. --Chair Issa that no personal 
affront was intended. This was directed at the entire panel.
    Chair Jordan. We got that. We got that.
    The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
    Mr. Issa. It wasn't me; it was everyone.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Fitzgerald. That makes me feel good, Mr. Johnson. Thank 
you.
    Chair Khan, thanks for being here today.
    Last December, I sent you a letter, along with several of 
my colleagues, asking about the FTC's consideration of 
environmental, social, and corporate governance factors, or 
ESG, as it is known, in merger enforcement. I appreciate that 
you had a prompt response in answering that FTC would not 
support conditioning the approval of the unlawful merger on the 
adoption of a particular set of ESG policies or commitments.
    While pleased with the first part of the response, you did 
not answer whether you would block a merger if it met 
traditional competition criteria, but falls short of some 
standard on ESG goals. Can you commit that ESG criteria will 
not play a role in a decision by the FTC to block a merger?
    Ms. Khan. We look at the text of the statutes, which tells 
us to block mergers if they substantially lessen competition or 
tend to create a monopoly. That's what we look at. Again, if 
companies make certain commitments to us about social justice 
commitments or ESG commitments, those are irrelevant to us.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. OK. Thank you.
    Since becoming Chair, have you ever communicated using 
Signal, WhatsApp, or through a different encrypted messaging 
app, on matters principally related to antitrust or consumer 
protection policy, FTC enforcement actions, press, political 
strategy, or any official communication? In particular, I'm 
interested to see if you've had any communication with Senator 
Warren, States Attorneys General, or outside groups.
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, the FTC has a very clear policy 
requiring that any FTC business relating to substantial matters 
be conducted only on authorized FTC devices, and I fully comply 
with that policy.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Did you have any communication with your 
now-Senior Advisor, Ms. Sarah Miller? Sarah Miller works for 
you, is that right?
    Ms. Khan. Ms. Miller joined my staff earlier this year, 
correct.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. While she was in her role at the Economic 
Liberties Project, regarding the decision to air attack ads on 
Members of this Committee, including myself, for our opposition 
to the FTC's proposed noncompete rule?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, I talk to a lot of people, but I'm 
never involved in those types of discussions.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. So, you weren't involved in the idea to, in 
fact, go after Members of this Committee in their districts?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we're really excited about this 
proposal. We're accepting a lot of public comments. We're eager 
to hear from Members of Congress. I've talked to many of you 
about the proposal. We're eager to hear you, your feedback and 
input.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. It was announced last night that you 
intended to break 30 years of precedent by challenging the 
court's ruling in the merger of Microsoft and Activision. Can 
you explain why, despite 39 countries and the European Union 
already clearing this merger, that you intend to move forward 
with, on administrative proceedings?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, again, this matter is pending 
before the Commission in our administrative adjudication. So, I 
can't comment on the merits. When we get an adverse ruling, our 
teams look closely at the text of the opinion; determine 
whether there are errors of law that they believe warrant an 
appeal. Those are the types of considerations that they take 
into account.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. In April of this year, the FTC's Associate 
Director for Litigation for the Bureau of Competition stated at 
a conference that, quote, ``Merger policy is industrial 
policy,'' and

        There is a role for merger policy in directing the way capital 
        flows into projects. That means at the next venture capital 
        meeting, they're not going to say, what's the exit via 
        acquisition? It will be, how do we get to an IPO.

Do you endorse this statement?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, I'm not familiar with the details of 
it. Happy to look at it in a question for the record.
    I'll say, generally, it is true that antitrust and 
competition policy is about ensuring robust competition. 
Entrepreneurs benefit from that. Startups benefit from that. I 
just met with some venture capitalists the other week that were 
expressing concern about a lack of exit options that don't 
involve being bought up by one of the large technology 
companies. These are certainly issues that we hear about.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. I think the issue for myself and many of my 
colleagues has been that the way you're running the FTC, that 
you're not simply trying to kill deals in the board room, 
you're also killing small businesses still in the crib. You 
want startups to seek an IPO rather than acquisition, but the 
cost of entering the public markets has doubled since the 
nineties, and your colleague, Mr. Gensler, at the SEC has been 
piling on with the rulemaking.
    So, I don't know if this is what the administration means 
by Biden economics, but I have to ask, why would anyone start a 
small business under this administration right now?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, we hear regularly from small 
businesses. One of the things that we started since I joined 
the Commission is open Commission meetings, where anybody in 
the country can sign up and come talk to us. We hear from a lot 
of small businesses.
    More often than not, what we hear is about the challenges 
that they face in being able to compete in an open, competitive 
marketplace. We hear about how the existing giants and existing 
incumbents are squeezing them and making it difficult, be it 
for an independent grocer, an independent pharmacist. So, we 
are very eager to hear from small businesses and make sure 
we're enforcing the laws in the ways that are enabling 
everybody to compete in the marketplace.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired. The 
gentleman yields back.
    The gentlelady from California is recognized.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thanks to our witness for being here.
    I have an interest in several areas where it seems to me 
the FTC has been less than robust, and which maybe you can 
disabuse me of that notion.
    First, in the area of swipe fees, Visa and Mastercard have 
more than 83 percent of market share. Congressman Gooden and I 
introduced the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023 to introduce 
competition. Our small businesses pay a higher swipe fee than 
people do in other developed nations. I'm wondering whether the 
FTC will be having an active engagement in this area.
    I'm also concerned about the issue of consolidation in the 
grocery sector. These large companies have the power to secure 
preferential pricing and treatment from suppliers, to the 
detriment of independent grocers.
    Now, recently, Mr. Tiffany and I led appropriations request 
for $10 million specifically for FTC enforcement of the 
Robinson-Patman Act. I'm interested in what you can tell us 
about FTC and Robinson-Patman.
    I also have long been a champion of right to repair. 
Congressman Issa and I recently introduced legislation to limit 
the enforcement period of design patents, so that monopolies 
cannot prevent individuals from repairing what they own.
    The Nixing the Fix Report was before your tenure, but I'm 
interested in what FTC is interested in doing in this area 
going forward.
    Finally, Congresswoman Eshoo and I introduced what I think 
is the toughest online privacy act that's ever been introduced 
in Congress. It simply prevents companies from collecting data, 
so they cannot, then, use it to manipulate Americans. I'm 
interested in what actions the FTC is going to take to minimize 
data minimization, which I think is a key to data security, 
privacy, and also, helpful in competition.
    Ms. Khan. So, on your first point, just a few months ago, 
the FTC announced an enforcement action against Mastercard. We 
alleged that there was a violation of the Durbin Amendment, and 
that Mastercard had engaged in unlawful tactics to block 
competing networks and really stifle the competition that 
Congress has sought to encourage in this market back in 2010, 
because I think you're absolutely right, we still see fees that 
are much higher than what we see in sectors where you have more 
competition.
    Robinson-Patman, and reinvigorating enforcement of it, is a 
top priority. We've certainly heard from independent grocers 
about the ways in which differential treatment and 
discriminatory prices may be squeezing them and disfavoring 
them, making it difficult to compete, especially in parts of 
rural America. That's something that we're looking at closely.
    We also, several months ago, launched a market inquiry 
looking at supply chain disruptions, and the degree to which 
that type of differential treatment may have contributed.
    On right to repair, this has been a big area of focus for 
us. In addition to the great staff report you mentioned, we 
also issued a policy statement. We followed up with several 
enforcement actions, including one against Harley-Davidson, one 
against Weber.
    Since then, we've also been working with State 
legislatures, several of whom are also considering right to 
repair legislation. Just the other month, one of our staffers 
went to California to testify before the State Senate there to 
give input and feedback on their legislative efforts in this 
area. So, we're bringing our own lawsuits, but also looking to 
serve as force multipliers where other legislators are looking 
to be active.
    Ensuring robust privacy protections for Americans is a top 
priority. We've been extraordinarily active in this area, 
especially when it involves children's privacy. We brought an 
enforcement action against Epic Games because we found that 
certain lax privacy policies that they had in place were 
endangering children.
    We've also been looking at people's sensitive health 
information and instances in which companies are collecting 
health data for the purpose, ostensibly, of providing health 
services, but then, are turning it around and making it 
available for advertising.
    We're also looking at geolocation data. We have a lawsuit 
pending in Idaho against a data broker called Kochava, where we 
allege in our complaint that its practices allowed people to--
allowed companies to track and get very sensitive geolocation 
information on consumers in ways that revealed whether they 
were going to church, whether they were seeking certain types 
of health services, whether they were seeking addiction 
recovery facilities--very sensitive data. So, that lawsuit is 
still pending.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see my time has 
expired and I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair recognizes himself.
    Madam Chair, why are you harassing Twitter?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, thanks for the question.
    As you might know, the FTC's work on Twitter goes back a 
decade. Back in 2000 and--
    Chair Jordan. I'm not talking about a decade; I'm talking 
about now.
    Ms. Khan. Back in--
    Chair Jordan. Twelve demand letters in 10 weeks, 300--over 
350 separate requests you have demanded of Twitter. Why are you 
harassing them?
    Ms. Khan. Twitter has a history of lax security and privacy 
policies.
    Chair Jordan. You've asked for every single communication 
relating to Elon Musk, not communications that he just sent to 
someone or communications he received, but anytime he's 
mentioned. That actually seems more, actually, more than 
harassment. That seems like almost an obsession. Why such an 
intense focus?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, again, it was found that 
Twitter's lax privacy policies allowed unauthorized users to 
coopt Twitter accounts, including that of Fox News. 
Subsequently, Twitter voluntarily entered into a consent order 
with the FTC. Unfortunately, we found--
    Chair Jordan. Here's what you wrote in December. Madam 
Chair, here's what you wrote in December:

        Identify all journalists and other members of the media to whom 
        Twitter has granted access since Musk bought the company.

You want to know the name of every journalist a private company 
has talked to? Do you think that's consistent with the First 
Amendment?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, as a former journalist, I take 
extremely seriously the valuable work that they do and 
understand that there can be instances in which government 
action is--
    Chair Jordan. Particularly--
    Ms. Khan. --unjustifiably chilling that activity--
    Chair Jordan. Particularly, Madam Chair, if I could? 
Particularly, if I could just interject? Particularly, in the 
context here. I mean, it's bad enough if you've got government 
asking a private company about who are the journalists you're 
talking to. You name four of them and say, ``We want the other 
names of any journalists you may, in fact, be communicating 
with.'' That's bad enough and I think a threat to the First 
Amendment and freedom of the press. In the context of giving us 
information about how government had suppressed speech on these 
platforms, that's the context you're asking for. I think that's 
particularly troubling, don't you?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, the consent decree that we have 
prohibits Twitter from sharing personal information with third 
parties. When we read in the papers, like everybody else, that 
Twitter may have granted access to third parties, that's what 
our teams were seeking information about.
    Again, this is a company whose history with the FTC goes 
back a decade--
    Chair Jordan. Madam Chair, we've got limited time. Madam 
Chair, who is David Roque?
    Ms. Khan. Could you repeat that, Congressman?
    Chair Jordan. David Roque, R-o-q-u-e, who is David Roque?
    Ms. Khan. I'm not familiar with that--
    Chair Jordan. You deposed him last month, June 21, 2023. 
David Roque is the independent partner for Ernst & Young's 
independent assessment of Twitter's program that's part of this 
consent decree. Do you know what Mr. Roque said in that 
deposition?
    Ms. Khan. I'm not aware.
    Chair Jordan. OK. Let me read it for you, then, because I 
think it's pretty important.
    Mr. Roque testified--again, in front of your lawyers; you 
deposed him--testified that FTC's conduct made him feel,

         . . . as if the FTC was trying to influence the outcome of the 
        engagement before it had started . . . . In some of the 
        discussions that we were having with the Federal Trade 
        Commission, expectations were being conveyed about what those 
        results should be before we had even begun any procedures.

    So, they're the independent assessor in this consent decree 
the FTC has with Twitter, and you're telling the guy who is the 
person--he's the guy; he's the ``Joe the accountant'' who's 
going to get this information--you're telling him, you're 
putting your finger on the scale telling him what you want the 
outcome to be, and he's supposed to be the independent fact-
finder. Why are you doing that?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, I'm not familiar with those 
specifics--
    Chair Jordan. Because it was just filed today, but we are--
this is filed in court today and this is your deposition.
    Ms. Khan. I'm happy to take a closer look at it and be back 
in touch.
    I will say, as a general matter, we want to make sure that 
the assessors and auditors that are responsible for overseeing 
compliance are doing their job.
    Chair Jordan. You're saying Mr. Roque is lying in what he 
testified here, what's been filed in court today, that there 
were suggestions of what they would expect the outcome to be? 
``They'' being the FTC. There were suggestions of what they 
wanted him to go find in his independent assessment of the 
consent decree agreement the FTC and Twitter.
    Ms. Khan. Again, I'm happy to take a close look and we can 
be back in touch with you about that allegation, but our staff 
are consummate professionals. When they conduct these 
investigations, they're focused on determining whether there 
was a violation--
    Chair Jordan. Did you go after--did you--is your attack on 
Twitter, harassment on Twitter, is that based on the fact that 
all kinds of Democrats have asked you to do this, and frankly, 
some things that you have written about dealing with, quote, 
``disinformation''? Does that have anything to do with it, Ms. 
Khan?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we make only independent 
determinations about whether there were law violations.
    Chair Jordan. The statement from Chair Nadler, the 
statements from--the letter, the press release and the letter 
from seven Democrat Senators, that had no impact on it? That's 
not why you're doing it?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely not. We look very closely at the 
specific matter at hand.
    Chair Jordan. Twelve demand letters in 10 weeks, telling 
the independent assessor, ``Hey, put your finger on the scale. 
This is the results we want,'' that's not harassment and it had 
nothing to do with the fact that every Democrat in this town 
seemed to be telling you to go after Twitter?
    Ms. Khan. Our focus is on protecting people's privacy and 
security. Twitter has sensitive data on 150 million Americans, 
including private messages. We need to make sure, especially 
given its history going all the way back to 2010, that we're 
doing everything to make sure Twitter is complying with the 
order.
    Chair Jordan. That's fine. Don't put your finger on the 
scale and don't attack the First Amendment and the rights of 
journalists.
    Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, point of order.
    Chair Jordan. With that, I yield. I yield back and 
recognize the gentleman from California for five minutes.
    Mr. Schiff. Thank you.
    Madam Chair, thank you for your testimony today and thank 
you for the refreshing and aggressive approach you're taking to 
ensure competition.
    In my view, we have reached a dangerous point in this 
country where there has been a tremendous concentration of 
corporate power--at the expense of working families. The 
challenge we face today is not that people aren't working; 
people are working. The problem is they're not making enough to 
get by. Part of that is the result of this concentration of 
power in corporate hands--the likes of which I don't think we 
have seen in our history. So, I appreciate the work that you're 
doing.
    I want to ask you, in particular, about an issue I've 
written to you about that concerns me, and that is 
consolidation among the large grocery stores, the large grocery 
chains. This has the potential of not only having an adverse 
impact on price, but also having an adverse impact in the form 
of job losses, in the form of creation of food deserts, 
impacting communities.
    If you are able to share your thoughts in terms of that 
particular merger, great. If you're not, I would ask, more 
generally, what you're looking at in terms of impacts and, 
also, vis-a-vis the narrowness of the doctrine that focuses 
only on consumer prices? Would that prevent you from looking at 
other criteria, such as the impact on communities and the 
impact workers?
    Ms. Khan. So, we seek to take a 360 view to make sure we're 
fully understanding how a particular merger may be lessening 
competition in ways that are informing consumers, but that may 
be hurting suppliers. In the context of grocery mergers, we 
really take care to make sure we're looking at all sides.
    As you noted, there is a pending investigation that Kroger-
Albertsons has disclosed. The FTC is looking at their proposal. 
I think you're absolutely right, though. We have seen the 
consolidation in the grocery sector could have devastating 
effects for communities, contributing to food deserts. One 
practice that is also on our radar is the way in which grocery 
chains can be using what are known as restrictive covenants to 
try to lock out competition geographically, which may also be 
contributing to these food deserts.
    So, we're looking at that closely. We want to make sure 
that we're enforcing the antitrust laws in ways that are 
serving all communities.
    Mr. Schiff. Well, I appreciate that. I have grave concerns 
about the Kroger-Albertsons merger and the impact on the 
communities that I represent, and many others throughout 
California and the country, in terms of impact on workers, on 
prices, and on communities.
    Let me just turn to the issue that the Chair was just 
raising with you. You didn't get much of a chance to elaborate 
on the privacy and security problems at Twitter and how they 
could impact the privacy of millions and millions of Americans. 
I'd like to give you that opportunity, because I'm both 
concerned with the enormous proliferation of hate speech on 
Twitter, the firing of many of the individuals charged with 
security at Twitter, and what impact that on the rise of hate, 
but also on the decrease in security and privacy of people's 
data at Twitter.
    Ms. Khan. So, again, we're squarely focused on the privacy 
and security implications of any decisions that may be made. As 
I noted, Twitter's history with the FTC goes back over a decade 
where serious security and privacy lapses led to personal 
information being compromised. As you noted, Twitter today also 
has access to deeply personal, sensitive information.
    In 2022, we entered into a revised consent order because we 
found that Twitter unfortunately had been in violation of the 
prior consent order. Whenever we have repeat offenders at the 
agency, we're always thinking very hard about what we can be 
doing to prevent repeat violations. Our revised order has even 
tighter privacy and security provisions. It was voted out 
unanimously at the Commission. We'll continue to make sure that 
our orders are being followed that companies are protecting 
people's privacy and security.
    Mr. Schiff. I appreciate that. I'd also like to ask 
unanimous consent to enter in the record a couple articles, one 
from Gizmodo, ``Elon Musk, King of Censorship: 10 Times the 
Free Speech Absolutist Silenced Twitter Users,'' and also an 
article from Rest of the World, ``Twitter is complying with 
more government demands under Elon Musk,'' which includes:

        But Twitter's self-reported data shows that, under Musk, the 
        company has complied with hundreds more government orders for 
        censorship or surveillance--especially in countries such as 
        Turkey and India.

I request consent to enter those into the record.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Chair. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from 
Colorado is recognized.
    Mr. Buck. I thank the Chair. Chair Khan, thank you for 
being here. Do you own stock in Apple, Amazon, Facebook, or 
Google?
    Ms. Khan. No.
    Mr. Buck. Do you own stock in any of the competitors to 
those companies?
    Ms. Khan. I do not.
    Mr. Buck. Do you know that the ethics official who 
requested that you recuse yourself from any activities 
involving Facebook, owned stock in Facebook?
    Ms. Khan. I learned about that, yes.
    Mr. Buck. Do you know how much it costs to buy Congress? 
Well, big tech does. They spent $250 million against the bills 
that pass out of this Committee last Congress. They spent money 
lobbying. They spent money on advertising in Members' 
districts. They spent money with third-party think tanks. They 
spent money that no other effort in recent memory certainly has 
been spent.
    It's not just the money that they spent. On lobbying, for 
example, Meta spent--and I call it Facebook--$20,070,000; 
Amazon, $19,320,000; Alphabet, $11,770,000; and Apple, 
$6,500,000. It's not just the money that they spent on lobbying 
and those activities.
    On June 18, 2021, just five days before the markup hearing 
of the big tech bills in this Committee, Paul Pelosi, Nancy 
Pelosi's tech investor husband, bought 4,000 shares of Alphabet 
via a call option in which he promised stocks at a later date 
at a price of $1,200 a share a month later. Now, this is after 
we've passed the bills. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, sent Steny 
Hoyer, the majority leader, to the press to tell the press that 
these bills were not ready for the floor.
    A month later, the stock price rose to over $2,500, making 
Paul Pelosi $5.2 million richer without spending a penny. 
Speaker Pelosi's office, it should be noted, issued a statement 
denying any involvement or prior knowledge of the transaction. 
The fact remains that she refused to bring to a vote on the 
House floor those bills, bills that resulted from an 18-month 
long investigation.
    We had last year as a result of Congresswoman Jayapal's 
efforts and my efforts and some other efforts a stock ban in 
the House, a ban that would prohibit Members from buying 
individual stocks. You probably also don't know that more than 
50 Members of Congress bought stocks in pharmaceutical 
companies during the COVID crisis when Congress immunized--a 
good term, I guess, to use during the COVID crisis--immunized 
pharmaceutical companies if there were any problems with the 
vaccines that they created. We can't pass a stock ban, but we 
can call you into Congress and suggest that somehow you 
shouldn't be involved in activities involving some of these 
companies because you wrote a law review article.
    Do you have a child? I don't want you to answer that 
question just yet because that's personal. Do you have a child 
who is lobbying for Amazon or Facebook?
    Ms. Khan. No, he's turning six--he's turning six months 
this week, so, no.
    Mr. Buck. OK. They'd probably still hire him. If they could 
influence you, they would hire your child at six months old 
because, in fact, they've hired Senator Schumer's daughters to 
lobby for them. The same bills that pass the House didn't 
pass--didn't get a chance--I'm sorry.
    The same bills that passed the House Judiciary Committee 
and never saw the light of day on the Senate floor, either. 
That's just how the game goes. You're well aware of the need to 
update the antitrust laws concerning the new economy that we 
are facing. I'd just like you, if you could, briefly to explain 
what is the need. Why is it so difficult to apply antitrust 
laws written at the turn of the last century to the new 
economy?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks, Congressman. So, there is antitrust 
doctrine on the books that has embedded within its certain 
economic assumptions about how certain markets work, about what 
types of incentives businesses face. That doctrine in some 
cases is 30-40 years old, way before we had the advent of 
digital markets.
    These digital markets function differently, right? You have 
the self-reinforcing advantages of data, network externalities. 
Companies face different incentives. They're engaged in 
different strategies.
    Sometimes there can just be a gap between how the doctrine 
is saying businesses are acting and what we see in reality. So, 
legislative updates can be needed to close that gap between 
what the theory says or what the doctrine says, and what we're 
all living with in actual markets. So, that's, in particular, 
where legislative action can be absolutely critical.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman yields back. The gentleman from California is 
recognized.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Khan, welcome 
today. What is your job?
    Ms. Khan. I have the great honor of serving as Chair of the 
Federal Trade Commission.
    Mr. Correa. What do you do in that role?
    Ms. Khan. Well, help manage the agency oversee both our 
Bureau of Consumer Protections--
    Mr. Correa. Protect consumers?
    Ms. Khan. Protect consumers, protect--
    Mr. Correa. Where do you get that authority?
    Ms. Khan. Congress charged us with that in the FTC Act and 
subsequent Legislative Amendments.
    Mr. Correa. Is that new?
    Ms. Khan. Excuse me?
    Mr. Correa. That authority new?
    Ms. Khan. That authority stems back to 1914 and then 
subsequent amendments in the following decades.
    Mr. Correa. We talked a little bit earlier about litigation 
fees, enforcement costs. Let me ask you, are you a profit 
center or are you an agency in charge of protecting consumers, 
enforcing the law, and going after individuals that may prey on 
our consumers, our taxpayers?
    Ms. Khan. We're a government agency that using every dollar 
we have to protect the American people from illegal business 
practices.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you. Let's talk about Main Street, people 
who send us here to Washington. I get scam calls every day, 
robocalls. Seniors get robocalls every day. Veterans get 
robocalls every day. How are you working with the FCC to stop 
these calls from happening?
    Ms. Khan. So, we in the FCC have overlapping jurisdiction 
as you noted. One thing that we're doing in addition to going 
after some of the robocallers themselves is identifying what 
are some of the upstream factors that are allowing these calls 
to proliferate? Sometimes these calls are originating from 
other countries in ways that can make it difficult for us to go 
directly after them. This is why we look at VoIP providers and 
other upstream--
    Mr. Correa. Madam Chair, a number of years ago, I had a 
situation in my district. We had to get Interpol involved. 
Calls were originating from Mexico when the local telephone 
companies were providing the calling information. It was a 
huge, huge mess. International, very much a difficult 
challenge. What can we in Congress do to help you rein in these 
predatory calls?
    Ms. Khan. There are certainly legislative updates that 
we're happy to recommend to you and your team. I would say 
generally given that the FCC also has authority over the 
telecom carriers themselves. Directly taking action at that 
layer could also probably have a very big impact.
    Mr. Correa. At the end of those scam calls, you have 
victims, people that get hurt really bad and struggle to get 
that money back. What is your agency doing to help consumers 
get their money back?
    Ms. Khan. We're bringing lawsuits where we can. 
Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, we suffered a big setback 
in court where the court said that 13B of the FTC Act which has 
been a core provision that we use to go into court and get back 
money for people who have been scammed out of money. The court 
said, ``we can no longer use that authority.''
    That was a big setback. Since then, we've been activating 
other legislative authorities to make sure we're trying to get 
money back where we can. There's no doubt that billions of 
dollars evaporated after that court decision. People are losing 
out as a result.
    Mr. Correa. So, do you need legislative help from Congress 
to do your job, protect consumers in this area of junk fees?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely. Legislation, in particular, enabling 
the FTC to go into court under Section 13B and get money back 
so that lawbreakers are not profiting from their lawbreaking. 
That would be essential.
    Mr. Correa. I think that's important. Lawbreakers need to 
know there's somebody there, a police officer waiting to make 
sure that they follow the law. Too many times my locals get 
ripped off. They call the local PD.
    They don't know what to do. They call the local State 
agency. They don't know what to do. I hope that you and your 
agency can continue to be effective in making sure that 
consumers on Main Street are protected.
    Our seniors essentially that sometimes are embarrassed to 
call me and tell me, I just got ripped off. They don't have the 
energy or the wherewithal to defend themselves. These are the 
people we need to be protecting.
    I asked if you were a profit center. I know you're not. 
Nonetheless, I encourage you to continue to do a good job 
because my constituents, American taxpayers, are relying on 
your agency in doing a good job. Thank you very much. Mr. 
Chair, I yield.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from 
Virginia is recognized.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Madam Chair. You implemented the use 
of omnibus resolutions in antitrust investigations. These 
resolutions in effect give the Chair of the FTC sole control 
over FTC investigations. The Chair could direct staff to 
investigate a transaction, sign all subpoenas without a 
Commission vote, which was previously necessary in 
investigations of almost all mergers and business conduct.
    Former Commissioners Phillips and Wilson, Wilson resigned 
over much of this type of action from you. This paragraph 
eliminated the only layer of Commission oversight. Wouldn't you 
agree that the use of omnibus resolutions in this matter 
undermines the bipartisan nature of this Commission model? Are 
you trying to turn the Commission into your own personal 
empire?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, omnibus resolutions have long been 
used at the FTC before I joined. It's fairly standard for there 
to be omnibus resolutions on the consumer protection side, 
again, long before I joined. Changes we made brought the 
consumer protection side in symmetry with the competition side 
to empower our staff to act nimbly.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Let's talk about that because the staff has 
been leaving in droves. A report by Bloomberg found that 71 
senior attorneys left the agency in the two-period between 
2021-2022, the highest number of departures in the category for 
a comparable two-year period since 2000. Coincidentally, the 
Progressive Change Campaign happens to have a list of 400 
recommended names for positions in the FTC and the Biden 
Administration. Has anyone including Adam Green of the 
Progressive Change Campaign communicated with you to hire any 
of these individuals?
    Ms. Khan. No.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Have you hired any of these individuals?
    Ms. Khan. No, I don't know what list you're talking about, 
to be honest.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Let's move on to this Committee and your 
responsiveness, or lack thereof, to this Committee following up 
on what the Chair asked. In March, your Director of the Office 
of Congressional Relations testified before my Subcommittee on 
Responsive and Accountability to Oversight regarding your 
refusal to produce documents related to this Committee's 
oversight of the FTC's harassment of Elon Musk following his 
acquisition of Twitter. It's well known that the FTC frequently 
seeks extensive information from the parties that it 
investigates.
    When those parties fail to produce what's required to the 
FTC to conduct its investigation, the FTC seeks sanctions. In 
the FTC's response to this Committee's inquiry, most of what it 
has provided is already publicly available or otherwise 
incomplete. I find it inconceivable that the FTC would tolerate 
such a production for parties under its investigation. So, what 
should this Committee do and take from the FTC's paltry 
production to date on this matter?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, our team has been enormously 
responsive. We've been working day after day to accommodate 
this Committee's request. We've offered and provided numerous 
nonpublic briefings including on the matter that you mentioned. 
It is true when we have an ongoing law enforcement 
investigation, there are additional consideration we have to 
take into account to make sure we're not compromising law 
enforcement or killing any of the free speech of the third 
parties that communicate with us.
    Mr. Cline. Does that include communication through 
nongovernmental email accounts? Because in the limited 
materials that you provided, we can see that your staff 
communicated using Gmail accounts. In other instances, 
employees from other agencies were using employees email 
account attached to that separate agency.
    So, you were talking about how you're committed to using 
government communications methods. I don't know if you're aware 
that your staff is not. What steps have you taken to secure 
responsive material from sources outside the FTC?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, whenever anybody onboards onto the 
FTC, we provide extensive training to make sure everybody knows 
only to use authorized devices. If sometimes inadvertently 
there is a message that props up somewhere else, you're 
supposed to forward it to your FTC email. I imagine that's why 
it was actually captured in those productions.
    Mr. Cline. OK. You asked Congress for a historic budget 
increase of 160 million, or 37 percent, citing staffing 
shortages which you're largely responsible for and insufficient 
resources. Did you announce a joint effort within the DOJ 
antitrust division with the FTC to send staff to Europe to 
assist with implementation of their Digital Markets Act?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we have a really fantastic Office of 
International Affairs that I inherited. It was launched in 2007 
during the Bush Administration. As part of our international 
efforts, we're routinely sending detailees--
    Mr. Cline. Do you know how much that costs?
    Ms. Khan. Excuse me?
    Mr. Cline. How much does it cost to send staffers to 
Europe?
    Ms. Khan. I don't know off the top of my head, but we're 
happy to provide that information if it would be helpful to 
you.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Well, due to the rank partisanship that's 
coming up in your agency, the fact that you all are ignoring 
Congressional requests for information and the wastefulness 
that we've seen, I know that the Appropriations Committee is 
marking up your budget as we speak. They are seeking a 25 
percent reduction in funding for the FTC today. Actually, the 
Appropriations Committee is going to be passing that government 
funding bill.
    So, actions have consequences, Madam Chair. You're about to 
see what consequences your actions have had. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady 
from Pennsylvania is recognized.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Chair Jordan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sorry. I was just told 
that and soon forgot. The gentlelady from the other side of the 
country is recognized from the State of Washington.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair Khan, as head of 
the Federal Trade Commission, I would just like to thank you 
for the FTC's investigations and enforcement actions that 
protects small businesses and hardworking Americans and promote 
competition. You have done what few before you have dared to 
do.
    Few before you have had the courage to take on big 
corporations who use their endless lobbying money to hurt 
Americans with more fees, less transparency, and higher costs. 
You are taking on big tech and the monopoly powers that allow 
them to use our data and snuff out small business competitors. 
That was something that yesterday I got a lot of bipartisan 
praise for in taking on Director Wray at the FBI around 
privacy.
    You're doing the same thing. There should be more people 
like Representative Ken Buck talking about that on this 
Committee, talking about the efforts that you are making to 
finally put teeth into protecting consumers. I am grateful to 
you.
    In fact, I think it's precisely because of your success, 
your courage, and your integrity that you are receiving all 
these baseless attacks on your character. So, just for the 
record, here are the facts. It was FTC Ethics Official Lorielle 
Pankey who owned stocks in Meta when she recommended that Chair 
Khan recuse herself from investigating Meta, Facebook's parent 
company.
    In contrast, Chair Khan owns no stocks in big tech, not one 
penny. A Federal judge ruled that her stances do not constitute 
a conflict of interest. So, I want to thank you to your 
integrity and your commitment to the mission, which is 
precisely why the President appointed you to head the FTC.
    Now, I want to spend my time talking about your 
accomplishments, the FTC's accomplishments under your 
leadership. One in five workers are affected by noncompete 
clauses which essentially means that employers restrict or ban 
workers and their employment contracts from freely switching 
jobs just for the average person who's out there listening. The 
FTC is currently working on banning these noncomplete clauses. 
Can you explain in plain language why your agency proposed this 
rule to ban noncompete clauses?
    Ms. Khan. I'm happy to, Congresswoman. I would be remiss if 
I didn't mention our ethics officer. From working with her, I 
know our ethics officer to be a dedicated career professional 
who serves the agency with nothing but its best interest at 
heart. I understand in that instance she sought guidance from 
the Office of Government Ethics and acted consistently with it.
    On noncompete, so these are clauses that lock in workers 
and prohibit them from being able to seek an alternative job 
with a competitor for a period of time and oftentimes geography 
limits. We've seen from our work that these clauses suppress 
worker wages to the tune of $300 billion. They also make it 
difficult for startups and entrepreneurs and new businesses to 
enter and compete. That's why we've proposed this rule.
    Ms. Jayapal. What types of workers are going to benefit 
from the implementation of that rule?
    Ms. Khan. At the proposal stage, it would be everybody. 
We've heard from gardeners, journalists, healthcare workers, 
fast foot workers, engineers, and scientists. These noncompete 
clauses have really proliferated across markets and across our 
economy in ways that are now hurting everybody.
    Ms. Jayapal. So, let me turn to your work on junk fees. 
There are few issues today that unite Members of Congress more 
on the Hill. I'm proud to say that junk fees attract the ire of 
both Democrats and Republicans because as your agency notes, 
they are, quote, ``surprise charges that inflate costs while 
adding little to no value.'' So, tell us how widespread these 
junk fees are and give us some examples of what you're talking 
about and how they harm consumers.
    Ms. Khan. Yes, I'm sure everybody can relate to this in 
their day-to-day lives. These mystery fees that show up, be it 
a resort fee charge on your hotel bill or an unwanted or 
unnecessary charge that shows us somewhere else. One of the 
areas where we've heard most about these junk fees is in the 
auto context.
    Buying a car is one of the most significant financial 
investments that people make. Unfortunately, we've heard that 
all too often consumers are saddled with charges for 
unnecessary or unwanted or redundant fees. We're moving forward 
there.
    We also brought a lawsuit last year against Vonage for also 
including some of these junk fees when people tried to cancel 
their subscription. So, that's just some of the work. We 
currently sought comment on whether we should do more work on 
junk fees including potentially proposing a rule. We're 
reviewing those comments and determining how to move forward.
    Ms. Jayapal. The FTC has got a long history of dealing with 
junk fees. Is that correct?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Ms. Jayapal. Can you talk about that?
    Ms. Khan. So again, in the auto context, in particular, 
we've gotten hundreds of thousands of complaints about this. 
We've brought dozens of lawsuits addressing junk fees that 
consumers are saddled with when trying to buy a car. It's 
really market-wide that we've seen these charges emerge and 
that we're looking to be actively addressing.
    Ms. Jayapal. Well, I want to thank you for your work and 
hope that we talk more about some of the shared interest that 
we have across the aisle. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman 
from Florida is recognized.
    Mr. Gaetz. How timely. You are a brilliant woman with a 
tremendous ability to impact how consumers are going interface 
with the digital world for a long time to come. I want to get 
to those areas of agreement, but there is some ugliness we got 
to deal with. Now, you guys putting in the names of reporters 
in a correspondence to Twitter was solely predicated--based on 
anonymous news sources, right?
    Ms. Khan. It was based on reporting that--
    Mr. Gaetz. Right, and we would agree that anonymous 
reporting is not a sufficient predicate for--to target--to send 
letters about journalists who are your critics, right?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, yes, the goal was third parties, but 
this is good feedback for us. We want to make sure we are not 
in any way suggesting that we are interested in affecting 
journalists' work. It is really about privacy and security. So, 
I really appreciate--
    Mr. Gaetz. I appreciate your acknowledgment that this is 
not the way we ought to do things. As someone who has seen ugly 
government action emerge out of anonymous reporting, perhaps I 
am a little sensitive to that, but I am glad that you have made 
that acknowledgment.
    Let's get onto the important work that you are doing. 
Millions of Americans have Ring doorbell cameras, and your 
agency recently put out a correspondence saying, quote,

        During a three-month period in 2017, a Ring employee viewed 
        thousands of videos of female users in their bedrooms and 
        bathrooms including videos of Ring's own employees.

There was also at Ring, according to the FTC, an unauthorized 
tunnel that allowed a Ukraine-based contractor to access 
consumer videos. An incident where a Ring employee gave 
information about a customer's--to their ex-husband was also 
something that you uncovered.
    You also State that bad actors at Ring took advantage of 
the camera's two-way communication functionality to harass and 
threaten people who used Ring cameras. There was a case where 
an 87-year-old woman in an assisted living facility was 
sexually propositioned through Ring's two-way features. Kids 
were subject to racial slurs. A hacker got in and threatened a 
family with physical harm if they did not pay a Bitcoin ransom 
and one hacker even communicated through the two-way feature to 
a customer that they had already killed the customer's mother 
and, quote, ``tonight you die.''
    What is going on at Ring?
    Ms. Khan. So, as you know, we recently took enforcement 
action precisely because of these very serious lapses in data 
privacy, which endangered Americans in their day-to-day lives. 
Overall, looking at some of these surveillance devices and how 
they can be misused and abused is a top area of focus for us 
because people's privacy is paramount.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes, I thought that when people got Ring it was 
to enhance their personal security, not to have their 87-year-
old relative in an ALF sexually propositioned, their children 
to be slurred at, and then to be told that they were going to 
be killed if they didn't pay Bitcoin ransom. So, thank you for 
that effort.
    Let's go to another evil company, Kochava. Kochava is one 
of these data brokers that you are going after, right?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Mr. Gaetz. The American people should know that Kochava 
geolocates where people go to church and then they sell that 
data to commercial enterprises, right?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Mr. Gaetz. That is really creepy, isn't it?
    Ms. Khan. I believe most people would have that reaction, 
yes.
    Mr. Gaetz. I got onto the FBI Director yesterday for their 
creepy FISA activity and now we have Kochava literally selling 
to people, oh, well, this is a Baptist, this is a Methodist, 
this was someone who goes to temple. Are you going to get these 
people and stop them?
    Ms. Khan. So, we have a pending lawsuit. We filed it last 
year. The court dismissed it. They gave us the opportunity to 
refile. We just refiled an amended complaint. We think it's 
urgent to act here because the types of stigmatization and 
harms that can stem from being able to track and sell people's 
sensitive geolocation information is just critical for us to be 
addressing.
    Mr. Gaetz. We didn't like it when the FBI was wanting to 
infiltrate the Catholic churches and I don't know that I want 
the data brokers to do the same. By the way, we have even seen 
how the FBI is using the data brokers to do an end-run around 
the Fourth Amendment. So, I really want to encourage your work 
in this space, and I hope that your litigation against Kochava 
is something that creates precedent.
    You know what, there has been criticism of some of your 
losses in court, but we as sophisticated lawyers know sometimes 
that a motion to dismiss in an initial complaint can create a 
pathway to an amended complaint to achieve relief. So, if the 
laws are insufficient to stop data brokers from selling 
information about where my constituents worship and if the laws 
are insufficient to stop Ring from these activities, I really 
hope you will work with us to change those laws.
    All of Mr. Buck's points are really central to this because 
if Congress is bought off, if people are just coming here to 
beat you up over what email account you use or what trip you 
have been on to Europe, I think it misses these things that are 
far more central to the life that our constituents lead. Thank 
you for your work.
    Chair Jordan. I would just say worse than Kochava selling 
it, is the FBI is probably buying it. That is the scariest 
part.
    Mr. Gaetz. Agree with both.
    Chair Jordan. So, I appreciate--
    Mr. Gaetz. Let's get a bill, Mr. Chair, to deal with those 
data brokers.
    Chair Jordan. We are working with the gentlelady who just 
went right before you to do just that. That is something that I 
this Committee can hopefully agree on.
    I neglected to mention this earlier, Madam Chair. We have 
been at this 1\1/2\ hours. If you need a break at any time, 
just let us know. If not, we can keep going because we can get 
up and leave, but you can't. So, you let us know if you need a 
break. With that, if you are willing to keep going, we will go 
to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania for five minutes.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Chair Khan, I want to start by 
thanking you and the FTC for your work to protect American 
businesses and workers and consumers on issues ranging from 
privacy concerns to deceptive business practices, to unwanted 
telemarketing and robocalls, to fraud and financial 
exploitation that targets seniors, service members, veterans, 
and those in recovery from opioid disorder. Those are all 
really important issues, and we hear from our constituents 
regularly about all that.
    You don't have an easy job. It is not made any easier when 
bogus claims are levied against you in Congressional Hearings. 
Every day some of our colleagues seem to be trying to prove the 
legal maxim that if you don't have the law on your side, argue 
the facts. If you don't have the facts either, just argue. So, 
we appreciate your patience in responding to a lot of fact-free 
questions.
    I want to focus my questions on hospital consolidation and 
the growing problem of private equity firms buying up hospitals 
and healthcare groups. In the Philadelphia region in recent 
years, we have had two major hospitals purchased by private 
equity firms after which those firms mismanaged the healthcare 
functions of the hospitals, stripping them of their assets, and 
then either closing the hospitals or putting them up for sale.
    This was Hahnemann Hospital in 2020, which was closed in 
the middle of the COVID pandemic after a private equity-backed 
real eState developer bought it. That left a gaping hole in our 
front-line healthcare system in one of the poorest cities in 
the country.
    Then currently the Crozer Health system is teetering on the 
verge of bankruptcy while hemorrhaging talented staff and 
medical practices after a private equity owner stripped the 
system of assets, undermined its relationships with medical 
staff, and has reduced access to medical care, particularly 
maternity care, emergency services, and behavioral healthcare.
    The impact on our local healthcare system has been so 
extreme. We have seen local Republican politicians calling for 
government intervention in this private equity firm's hospital 
business to prevent from closing or bankrupting the system and 
its constituent parts.
    We are also seeing this troubling national trend in which 
private equity firms have embarked on a buying spree to scoop 
up smaller healthcare groups. There was a revealing report from 
the Petris Center at UC Berkeley and the Washington Center for 
Equitable Growth detailing the trend of private equity firms 
buying up multiple doctor groups in a city and then using that 
consolidation to raise prices. So, we are really concerned 
about this trend that is reducing access to healthcare and then 
raising prices.
    So, what is the FTC's response to the call for more 
regulatory scrutiny over these transactions and how can it 
increase oversight and enforcement activities to ensure that we 
preserve market competitiveness in our healthcare system?
    Ms. Khan. This is such an important issue, Congresswoman, 
and we at the FTC, our team has done a fantastic job really 
addressing hospital consolidation. In particular, in local 
markets we've had a whole set of successes really spanning 
hospitals trying to merge in ways that would have hurt 
patients. Our staff was able to block that transaction and the 
parties walked away.
    I think you're absolutely right though that today we're 
seeing different types of strategies including the incursion of 
private equity. I recently met with some emergency medicine 
physicians who had come from across the country who were 
sharing how the incursion of private equity is really harming 
quality of healthcare for people in very material ways. So, 
that's something that's on our radar.
    We're trying to figure out how do we update our tools to be 
able to address this. We recently issued some proposed updates 
to what's known as our Hart-Scott-Rodino Form. Sounds very 
technical, but it's basically the information that parties have 
to provide us when they're looking to make an acquisition. 
Partly those changes would give us more insight into some of 
the type of roll-up strategies that you're mentioning so that 
we know on day one whether a private equity firm has this 
history of roll-ups that should put us on high alert. So, 
definitely something that we're looking at closely.
    Ms. Scanlon. OK. I have got a couple more questions on that 
same topic that I will save for the next round or submit to 
you, but I did want to yield 30 seconds to Representative 
Jayapal.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you so much, Representative Scanlon.
    I just wanted to say quickly before I ask my question that 
I was not trying to attack the ethics of your ethics officer. I 
was trying to point out the hypocrisy of those on the other 
side who raised that you have conflict of interest and don't 
mention the other issues that might exist there.
    I just want to go to evil actors because there is one more 
I really want to talk about, and that is tax preparation 
companies. For years Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, flooded 
consumers with ads promising free, free, free tax filing 
services only to trick and trap them into paying, which is why 
taxpayers pay $250 on average each year just for the privilege 
of filing their taxes.
    So, State Attorney Generals have won taxpayer's money from 
Intuit and the FTC has also taken action. Can you just speak 
about that?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, absolutely. So, last year the FTC brought a 
lawsuit against Intuit for those very types of deceptive 
practices that are laid out in our complaint. That is still 
pending, but I couldn't agree more that claims of something 
being free but then ultimately not being so really hurts 
people.
    Mr. Gaetz. The gentlelady's time is expired.
    The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Khan, I'd like to begin with policies related to 
diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, that you have instituted 
at the FTC during your tenure.
    Last month you implemented a so-called Equity Action Plan 
that calls on the FTC's Bureau of Competition to, quote, 
``update its case selection based on those two criteria.'' 
Allowing the bureau to wade into picking cases based on these 
amorphous terms like equity is an idea that we believe is 
fraught with problems.
    You have also hired staff who have published articles on 
the topic of, quote, ``antiracist antitrust.'' Can you explain 
to the Committee what that means? What does that term mean?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, it's not a term that I've used. I 
can say generally I know that there is a lot of worry that 
concentrated economic power hurts everybody, all communities, 
and that the FTC needs to be mindful to make sure that our work 
is focused on the harm that is affecting everybody.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Everybody, right? So antiracism 
should not play a factor in competition and consumer protection 
policies at the FTC, right?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we bring our lawsuits based on the 
law at and. We look at closely at where we--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. This is not one of the factors? 
Antiracism is not going to be used under your watch, right?
    Ms. Khan. There are instances in which Congress has asked 
the FTC to look at whether particular communities are being 
defrauded. In those instances, we follow what Congress has told 
us to do, but otherwise we just follow the general laws, that's 
correct.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. A senior staffer at your FTC 
recently attended an event, gave a speech, and discussed, 
quote, ``applying a gender lens to antitrust,'' in which the 
senior staffer praised a cross-agency equity team. Are you 
applying a gender lens in the context of antitrust analysis 
now?
    Ms. Khan. To be honest, I'm not really sure what that 
means.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. We aren't, either. I hope you are 
not using it. OK. Is there a cross-agency equity team? Was she 
accurate about that?
    Ms. Khan. We have a lot of cross-agency teams. There are 
teams that are focused on how you make the FTC a better place 
to work, including by making sure that certain types of--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. Equity is not in your 
bailiwick now. You don't have a team dedicated to that, 
correct?
    Ms. Khan. We have a cross-agency team that's thinking about 
how to make sure that the FTC is a good place--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. She just overspoke. OK. I got 
it, for time. Don't you think reorienting the FTC from 
protecting consumers to protecting favored groups, that this 
idea would run counter to what the FTC's mission is? Right? You 
said it is to apply to everyone, right?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. We shouldn't be injecting these--
I guess it is progressive policy initiatives that we are 
concerned about. The FTC has a really important mission, and we 
don't want you to get off course.
    Last year on a party line vote FTC also expanded its 
authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act well beyond what any 
previous FTC has done over the last 40 years. In a November 
2022 policy statement that power was expanded to unfair methods 
of competition that is described as, quote, ``conduct that goes 
beyond competition on the merits,'' and that, quote--here is 
the key--``even when conduct is not facially unfair, it may 
violate Section 5.''
    Following that decision Former Commissioner Christine 
Wilson stated--this is what she said, quote, ``The Commission 
has now created the authority to summarily condemn essentially 
any business it finds distasteful.''
    That is an extraordinary power. It is very concerning 
because unfair is an amorphous and very subjective term by 
nature. Are you using Section 5 authority to determine what is 
unfair even if it is not facially unfair, whatever that means?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we look very closely at the text of 
the statutes that Congress wrote. The text of the FTC Act 
instructs us to prohibit unfair methods of competition. We have 
to take those words seriously. When putting together that 
policy statement our team looked closely at decades of case law 
to try to understand how have courts interpreted what this 
means, and the policy statement reflects that.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. Really quickly, there is an 
example recently--I believe you are in the process of ending 
noncompete agreements as an unfair method of competition. That 
decision could go into effect next year, is that right?
    Ms. Khan. We got 24,000 comments on the proposal. We're 
reviewing them and determining how to move forward.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Would you favor a blanket ban on 
all noncompete agreements? Is that your position?
    Ms. Khan. So, the proposal bans the vast majority of 
noncompetes with a few exceptions, one of which is noncompetes 
that are included as part of the sale of a business.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. Let me ask you a question: 
Have you ever run or worked in a small business?
    Ms. Khan. I personally have not.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes. So, do you think it is 
reasonable for entrepreneurs and small businesses who have 
spent considerable time and money developing practices to 
better compete against their rivals to find your ban on 
noncompete agreements unfair?
    Ms. Khan. We'll be eager to hear from them. I know we've 
gotten a lot of input. The other thing I'll say we hear from 
small businesses is that noncompetes make it difficult for them 
to compete because if they're trying to enter a market and 
compete with some of the big guys, but the big guys have locked 
up all the workers through noncompetes, that hurts the small 
businesses. So, we really have heard multiple views on this 
issue.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I am out of time. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
    Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system 
who pays lip service to free competition but labels every 
antitrust prosecution as a persecution. Those words were 
uttered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 90 years ago.
    I have listened to most of today's hearing, Madam Chair, 
and of course we are grateful that you are here today. I have 
listened to many of the criticisms that have been made by my 
colleagues of your leadership at the FTC on the other side of 
the aisle. Not all my colleagues, but most of them. The vast 
majority of these criticisms have nothing to do with your 
ethics or your integrity or your approach to the job and 
everything to do with corporate power. The reality is that you 
have pursued your duties as the Chair of the FTC in a way that 
puts the best interests of the consumers first. That is a new 
approach at the FTC.
    I don't want to belabor the point because I have some 
substantive questions for you, but I will ask for unanimous 
consent later at the conclusion of my remarks and our colloquy 
here for an article in The Wall Street Journal from June 30, 
2023, the headline of which is ``Ethics Official Owned Meta 
Stock While Recommending FTC Chair Recuse Herself From Meta 
Case.''
    We have spent a great deal of time hearing my colleagues 
talk about this particular issue. I will just simply echo the 
comments made by my colleague from Colorado and my friend Mr. 
Buck who I thought very powerfully on this front.
    Only in Washington, DC, can an individual, a regulator who 
has no financial interest in the merger before her be accused 
of an ethics violation by Members of Congress who own 
financial--or have rather financial interests in the company 
that has petitioned for that--or has rather proceeded with that 
particular merger that is under review by the FTC on the basis 
of an opinion that was issued that didn't conclude that there 
would be a per se ethics violation for the commissioner in 
question to proceed with considering the matter, but 
nonetheless opined that there would be an appearance of 
impropriety and of course that individual having a financial 
interest in the underlying--in the company that was involved in 
the merger.
    I am not commenting. I agree with Ms. Jayapal on the 
propriety of the decisions made by the ethics individual or the 
Ethics Department more broadly. I am simply opining on the 
State of affairs in Washington, DC. Because for years we have 
had FTC commissioners who had real conflicts of interest. You 
didn't have any financial interest in Meta, right?
    Ms. Khan. That's correct.
    Mr. Neguse. You never worked for Meta?
    Ms. Khan. That's correct.
    Mr. Neguse. The basis as I understand it for the objections 
by many of my colleagues and others is that you have a certain 
view when it comes to putting consumers first and ensuring that 
monopolistic power does not reign supreme in our country. I 
just think it is unfortunate that some of my colleagues have 
taken that approach.
    I will say for my part I am grateful for the work that you 
have done at the department. I also am grateful for the work 
that your partners and of course other antitrust enforcement 
regulators and Assistant Attorney General Kanter has done over 
the course of the last several years.
    We, as you know, passed a bill on a bipartisan basis last 
year. It was my bill, The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, 
which I believe is going to strengthen your efforts and your 
ability and the efforts of your hardworking workforce within 
the FTC by changing the fee schedule for mergers, actually 
decreasing the fees for smaller mergers, but increasing the 
fees proportionately for billion dollar transactions and giving 
you the resources that you need to fight for consumers on 
behalf of the American public.
    I wonder if you might talk a bit about that particular 
bill, its implementation, and the impact it will have on agency 
resources.
    Ms. Khan. Thanks for the question and thanks for your 
effort leading that bill. It was a much overdue effort to 
update the filing fees. As you noted, make it clear that for 
larger transactions there is a higher fee; for smaller 
transactions a lower fee. We, in part, rely on those fees to be 
able to fund our enforcement and so that's absolutely going to 
be making a difference.
    Mr. Neguse. Well, as I have said, I am grateful for the 
approach that you all are taking. I was proud to work on that 
bill with Representative Buck who has been a champion on these 
issues, among other colleagues of mine on both sides of the 
aisle. I think we look forward to continuing our work with you, 
Madam Chair, for years to come on this front.
    With that, I will yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
    Mr. Massie. I thank the Chair.
    My constituents aren't contacting me worried about mergers 
between tech companies or that sort of thing, but one of the 
things I have been contacted about multiple times is the small 
independent grocers feel like they are--monopolistic practice 
is being used against them. Mr. Correa and I sent a bipartisan 
letter to you asking for an update because on November 29, 
2021; this is 17 months ago, the FTC ordered nine large 
retailers, wholesalers, and consumer goods suppliers to provide 
detailed information to help you study the causes behind 
ongoing supply chain disruptions.
    I appreciate you being willing to give us briefing, but can 
you brief us today? Like what have you found and are you going 
to be able to help these folks who are complaining about they 
can't get products or there is discriminatory pricing not based 
on quantity, but based on other things, or different package 
sizes? What can you tell us here today?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, this is such an important issue. We've heard 
from those independent folks as well and it's partly what 
informed our decision to launch this study. We're moving as 
expeditiously as we can. As you can imagine, sometimes firms 
don't have an incentive to give us all the information we need 
as quickly as we need it, but we are moving ahead full speed 
and happy to be providing you with the nonpublic briefing to 
share what we've found so far. We'll be looking to make our 
findings public as soon as we can.
    Mr. Massie. I hope that is soon. It has been 17 months 
since you asked them to give the information. I understand it 
takes them a while to get it to you, but I would hope we could 
get that very soon.
    Another issue that concerns many of us are these so-called 
preconsummation warning letters. On August 3, 2021, FTC 
announced that it would send warning letters in connection with 
transactions it cannot fully investigate with the time provided 
by the statute before the deal closes.
    Now, why should people trying to do regular business be 
punished because it is taking you too long to do your job? How 
many of these so-called pre-consummation warning letters have 
been sent by the FTC?
    Ms. Khan. So, the statute gives us only 30 days to look at 
a deal to determine whether we need to investigate it further. 
As deals have become more complex, that can be a very, very, 
very tight timeline. We have heard from some businesses that if 
we don't act within that 30-day period, the takeaway for them 
is that there are no issues and there are no concerns.
    So, we thought it was important to put business on notice, 
to provide them clarity and transparency that if there is a 
deal that we think raised concerns, but we weren't able to act 
within the 30 days, that we're putting them on notice about 
that again to make sure that the market has clarity on it.
    Mr. Massie. Commissioner Phillips publicly suggested that 
within the first six months of this practice over 50 letters 
were sent and raised the question of whether any of those 
investigations actually remained open and whether this approach 
was simply a tactic to scare business. I am worried that 
whether it is a tactic or not that is the effect that it is 
having. It is having a chilling effect. Then when you issue one 
of these letters and then you never tell them whether the case 
is closed or not kind of without doing anything, you have 
stopped transactions that would be helpful to Americans.
    I want to now yield back the remainder of my time to Chair 
Jordan.
    Chair Jordan. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
    When the FTC attorney deposing Mr. Roque asked him to 
confirm that quote, ``no one from the FTC directed you to reach 
a particular conclusion about Twitter's program.'' He explained 
to the contrary.
    There were suggestions of what they would expect the 
outcome to be. He testified that the FTC communicated to Ernst 
& Young--again Ernst & Young is the independent assessor, the 
fact finder that the FTC selected and made Twitter pay for--
that he communicated to Ernst & Young that, quote, ``Ernst & 
Young under all circumstances will be conducting and issuing a 
report on behalf of the FTC order,'' and was very adamant about 
this is absolutely what you will do and this is going to occur 
and you will produce a report at the end of the day. The FTC 
was so adamant. Ernst & Young leaders feared that the FTC would 
take exception of they chose to withdraw from the case.
    So, on the one hand you are harassing Twitter. Then you are 
saying to the guy we have selected, the entity we have 
selected, Ernst & Young, the accountant we have selected to be 
the fact finder, you better find what we want. If you try to 
get out of it, we are going to retaliate against you. That is 
frightening. We talk about the weaponization of government? 
This from the same agency that said tell us all the journalists 
you are talking to? That is what we are concerned about, Ms. 
Khan. That is what has to change.
    You can comment if you want, but I am reading from the 
motion filed today in court. It is amazing to me you don't even 
know this guy, you don't even know who this person is and your 
lawyers deposed him. He is the guy that you have set up as the 
fact finder and you didn't know who he was. Did you sign off on 
any of those 12 letters sent to Twitter in that 10-week 
timeframe?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we're fortunate to have a lot of 
work underway. A lot of this work is delegated to the front-
line staff that are able to move quickly and nimbly to make 
sure--
    Chair Jordan. Yes, but you are in front of Congress today. 
You knew you were going to get questions about this. The idea 
you don't know this, I find amazing.
    Ms. Khan. It sounds like it was a late-breaking development 
and a filing this morning. It's not something that's on my 
radar. I'd be reluctant to weigh in on it in this setting 
without looking more closely at it. Happy to take questions for 
the record on it and engage later.
    Chair Jordan. Not on your radar that you told--based on the 
testimony of this guy that he felt there would be retaliation 
if Ernst & Young tried to get out of the agreement? Wow.
    Mr. Massie. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you. Before my five minutes I ask unanimous 
consent to enter into the record what Mr. Neguse had hoped to 
enter: ``Ethics Official Owned Meta Stock While Recommending 
FTC Chair Recuse Herself From Meta Case.''
    Chair Jordan. Without objection.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Chair Khan, for being here, for speaking with us 
today about the important work that FTC does to safeguard 
consumers and crack down on companies that would exploit them. 
I come from a perspective as a mother, as a grandmother. I care 
about exploitation of seniors, children, businesses, and 
consumers generally.
    In your written testimony you explained that FTC works to 
protect privacy and data security, fight fraud, including fraud 
related to opioid recovery, and ensure that domestic 
manufacturers and small businesses have a chance to compete 
fairly. Somehow Republicans are using this time in other ways.
    I apologize I am late to the hearing today, but I am pretty 
sure I am glad I missed some of what happened. I was in another 
hearing with Secretary Kerry on the climate crisis, so forgive 
me for coming late.
    I wanted to ask you about the issue around opioid addiction 
and abuse and what FTC is doing. I know that FTC recently 
returned $60 million to people suffering from opioid addiction. 
I know you know, as well I, that the crisis, the health crisis, 
public health crisis in this country around the flood of 
opioids and opioid addiction is grave. A hundred and ten 
thousand people died last year of overdose. That is 300 people 
a day.
    Can you tell us about your work, FTC's work to try to 
protect consumers, maybe this case, the $60 million case with 
Reckitt--I don't know how to say that. Can you tell us about 
your work in that area?
    Ms. Khan. Happy to. When we were--this is a newer authority 
that Congress gave us, and I've been pleased that we have been 
able to quickly put it into action. We brought a set of 
lawsuits using this authority to make sure that if companies 
are deceiving potential patients of opioids recovery 
facilities, that we are acting quickly to prevent that 
deception.
    We brought a case against a firm called R360 because we 
found that they were engaging in some of these deceptive 
practices in ways that were harming opioid recovery patients. 
We recently brought another action that also noted that 
deception around tobacco addiction recovery is also illegal 
under the statutory authority.
    So, we are working to make sure if people are being 
deceived in ways that are illegal under this authority, we are 
acting and we are getting the money back.
    Ms. Dean. I thank you for that work. I hope you will 
continue in a robust way. Full disclosure, I have a son in 
long-term recovery, 10 years in recovery, from opioid 
addiction. We have lost too many others to this problem, and 
the deceptive practices are so egregious that it is very 
upsetting.
    I wanted to move to--I have some time--I do; good--pharmacy 
benefit managers. They operate behind the scenes. Consumers 
don't really know what they are all about. They are a middleman 
in the drug market and determine patients' access to 
medications as well as the prices consumers pay.
    In this role, PBMs have the power to raise prices and are 
part of the reason that consumers pay 20 percent more than they 
should for generic drugs. Can you speak to what FTC is doing 
around the issue of PBMs and disclosure to consumers and 
cracking down on the price hikes?
    Ms. Khan. You are absolutely right that these firms are 
oftentimes behind the scenes, so people are not directly 
interacting with them. Oftentimes, their decisions are 
determining what medicines make it onto what is known as the 
formulary.
    Unfortunately, we have heard reports that suggest that 
rebates between the drug manufacturers and the PBMs may be 
keeping lower cost generics off the formularies.
    So, what that means in practice is there is a lower-cost 
generic out there, but when patients are going to the pharmacy, 
they are not actually able to get it. They are having to pay 
more for the branded drug. So, we have said in our policy 
statement we are very concerned about that and are looking at 
it.
    Ms. Dean. Yes, how can we interrupt that, and FTC have some 
rulemaking, some effectiveness in interrupting that blockage of 
information to the consumer?
    Ms. Khan. So, we are looking closely at whether there may 
be violations of the FTC acts. The Robinson-Patman Act also 
prohibits certain types of kickbacks, I believe under 2(c) of 
the Robinson-Patman Act. So, we are really laying out all our 
authorities and making sure we are using them to address these 
issues.
    Because oftentimes we hear from insulin patients about how 
they haven't been able to afford lifesaving medicine, 
potentially because some of these tactics. So, we recognize the 
urgency of this work.
    Ms. Dean. Again, on behalf of consumers, seniors, and kids 
out there, thank you for your work and the work of your entire 
team. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you for being here today. I will say I wrote down 
something you said, I think I got the quote exactly right. I 
wrote it down because not only was it substantively 
meritorious, but also it was alliterative, ``People's privacy 
is paramount.'' If only the FBI leadership believed and acted 
that same way, I would be happy.
    I want to ask you first about the EU's Digital Markets Act. 
You previously commented and opined in response to Mr. Cline's 
questioning. He asked you how much spin, I think you said you 
don't know. I am wondering how many employees or personnel are 
working on the EU Digital Markets Act.
    Ms. Khan. So, my understanding is we currently have one 
employee that is detailed to Brussels. These details are 
routine, that have gone on for many years. They help improve 
coordination among agencies for us to better understand--
    Mr. Biggs. Is that employee working to help implement the 
EU Digital Marketing Act, or are they just observing? What is 
their role there?
    Ms. Khan. So, as a general matter, when we do these 
details, they are focused on antitrust enforcement, enforcement 
of the competition laws.
    Mr. Biggs. This is in Europe, though. This is 
implementation of a new law.
    Ms. Khan. So, these--
    Mr. Biggs. So, how does that impact antitrust law in the 
United States of America?
    Ms. Khan. So, these laws, as you noted, govern Europe. If 
the European Commission is working on implementing them, that 
is work that they are doing. Our work is focused on enforcing 
the U.S. laws, these types of details across agencies--
    Mr. Biggs. Right, but that begs the question, and I am 
looking for--I will move on because we always--the five-minute 
format is ridiculously absurd. We can't get a full answer or 
full question.
    So, I am hoping that maybe you or your team will respond 
more fulsomely as to why we have someone there, even observing 
the implementation of an EU law that is not here, unless you 
are intending to support something like that here.
    Are you familiar with someone named Rebecca Kelly 
Slaughter?
    Ms. Khan. Excuse me?
    Mr. Biggs. Are you familiar with someone named Rebecca--
    Ms. Khan. She is my colleague.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, right there.
    Ms. Khan. She is here.
    Mr. Biggs. So, I have a quote from her, interesting. We are 
glad you are here. She has called for an equity, inclusion, and 
antiracist agenda in the antitrust enforcement, yet antitrust 
enforcement typically is focused on the consumer welfare 
standard, right?
    So, do you agree with Ms. Slaughter, Commissioner 
Slaughter's call for equity, inclusion, antiracist approach to 
antitrust enforcement?
    Ms. Khan. So, let me say, first, it is just such a huge 
privilege to serve on the Commission alongside Commissioner 
Slaughter. She has thought so hard about how we make using all 
our tools--
    Mr. Biggs. That is beautiful. We only have five minutes. 
Send me a letter telling me how glad you are, please, but 
please respond to my question.
    Ms. Khan. She has thought an enormous amount of these 
issues and I won't claim to speak for her. The way I--
    Mr. Biggs. I am not asking you to speak for her. I am 
asking whether you agree that this is the appropriate approach 
and when it is a de facto departure from the consumer welfare 
standard.
    Ms. Khan. So, we enforce the laws that Congress charged us 
with. That includes prohibitions on unfair methods of 
competition--
    Mr. Biggs. So, not to interrupt, but to interrupt, you are 
not answering my question. My question is really specific. Do 
you support and agree with this new approach--which is what it 
would, because it would be a departure from the consumer 
welfare standard--do you agree with Ms. Slaughter's call for 
equity, inclusion, and antiracist as a basis to examine 
antitrust violations?
    Ms. Khan. So, again, we examine antitrust violations under 
the laws that Congress wrote.
    Mr. Biggs. Can you name a single law dealing with antitrust 
that obviates the consumer welfare standard and replaces it 
with an equity, inclusion, and antiracist standard? Any 
statute?
    Ms. Khan. The statute--
    Mr. Biggs. Federal statute.
    Ms. Khan. The statutes are worded broadly. We look closely 
at the text of them, as well as any case law.
    Mr. Biggs. Can you give me one that would facilitate 
obviating the consumer welfare standard and replacing it with 
the equity, inclusion, and antiracist standard?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, look, you are right, there 
aren't cases on these specific questions. I will say, when 
Congress was passing the antimonopoly laws, they were doing so 
because they were worried that concentrations of economic power 
hurt everybody. That is the mandate we have.
    Mr. Biggs. That is right. That is right. They--but that is 
from that point of view how the consumer welfare standard 
developed and evolved. Now this, if you were take the equity, 
inclusion, antiracist agenda and use that as your new standard, 
you would have moved away from statutory and case law and tried 
to impose a new standard.
    That is the point I am trying to make, and that is the 
point you are not responding to. I would ask that maybe you, or 
Ms. Slaughter even, whatever, would respond in the future so we 
have a chance to get the bottom of that.
    Appreciate you being here. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from 
Maryland is recognized.
    Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do want to start by 
commending Congressmen Buck and Gaetz for their comments 
earlier today. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the 
affirmative comments they made with respect to the FTC, but 
also legislation they are working on with Ms. Jayapal that I 
think is important and critical legislation that could be very 
useful.
    I kind of note that we haven't had hearings on legislation 
like that. We have had a lot of hearings for the weaponization 
issues and a lot of hearings trying to attack the Biden 
Administration in various ways. We haven't had any hearings on 
affirmative legislation that would have an impact on people in 
these markets.
    I am on the Antitrust Subcommittee, and I think we have had 
two hearings there. We had one Mr. Massie put together that 
dealt with agriculture issues, I think it was meatpacking in 
small entities.
    It wasn't explicitly an antitrust hearing. It just so 
happened that the witnesses at the table noted that the big 
four companies that are dominating that industry are the ones 
that are crushing small farmers and running them out of 
business and increasing prices. I requested at the hearing some 
sort of approach that would try and address that concern, but 
nothing has come back yet.
    I would note this too, we have got matters pending in the 
United States here before your commission or Department of 
Justice. It has been mentioned today already the PBMs, 
Ticketmaster, JetBlue, Kroger Albertsons merger, and the 
Microsoft matter that was handled yesterday.
    The Subcommittee on Antitrust has had no hearings on any of 
those issues whatsoever. So, I know this an oversight hearing 
with respect to the FTC, but it might make sense if we would 
take a moment and have a little oversight for ourselves on what 
is going on here on the Subcommittee.
    A few minutes ago, it was raised that--about a subpoena 
that the FTC had issued. I guess the comment was that it was 
over-broad.
    I did want to raise this as well, the Judiciary Committee 
on May 25, 2023, sent a document demand to the Department of 
Justice that demanded, and I am quoting,

        All documents and communications between or among the 
        Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service 
        referring or relating to any investigations involving both the 
        Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service from May 1, 
        2023, to the present.

    Now, we will set aside for a fact for a moment that this 
would include grand jury materials potentially, which of course 
they can't turn over based on a letter like this, even from 
Congress.
    If we are going to throw rocks, let's make sure we are not 
in the glass house. Because that is beyond over-broad. I think 
it is--and this isn't, I just picked one out of many, but 
there's a lot of requests that this Committee has sent out to 
the administration, and in some instances to private companies, 
depending on whether they are on the good side of the 
Republicans or not.
    I think we should be very careful in making sure we are 
using the power of the Committee and the House of 
Representatives in an appropriate way, just like they are 
asking the FTC to do.
    Then I did want to close with this point. That is with 
respect to the recusal issue. That has been discussed quite a 
bit. I think it has been addressed and Judge Boasberg's opinion 
I thought made it crystal clear why you didn't need to recuse 
yourself. In fact, he said in judging the motions that had 
filed to him, that it wasn't necessary or even appropriate.
    At the same time, this Committee again is ignoring one of 
the most obvious issues with respect to recusal ethics, and 
that is with respect to the Supreme Court.
    We had 35 Members send a letter to the speaker and to the 
Committee Chair raising the issues, and we have all heard of 
them. Justice Thomas, and you know, he has got billionaires 
buying property from his mother and taking him on yacht trips 
and the like. Justice Alito had similar sorts of issues.
    We sent a letter to both the speaker and the Committee 
Chair asking to have hearings, that we should take a look at 
code of conduct for the Supreme Court justices. That we should 
consider whether there should be rules in place with respect to 
recusal for Members of Congress.
    To the best of my knowledge, there has been no response to 
this letter. More importantly, no steps that have been taken to 
try and address the issues that have been made very obvious by 
the conduct of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito. That is just 
the beginning.
    So, I would move for unanimous consent to have an op-ed 
from Jesse Wegman, ``Does Justice Alito Hear Himself?'' and 
then Daniel Boguslaw, ``Samuel Alito's Wife Leased Land to an 
Oil and Gas Firm While the Justice Fought the EPA.''
    Then the letter that is dated April 17 to Honorable Kevin 
McCarthy and Honorable Jim Jordan, and it is from 35-plus 
Members of the House. I would ask that all these be made part 
of the record.
    Chair Jordan. Without objection. The gentleman from 
California--the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from 
California is recognized.
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Khan, there is a The Wall Street 
Journal column written by Christine Wilson. She resigned from 
the FTC because of a range of concerns over how you discharge 
your duties. What caught my attention was the censoring of her 
dissent in the Meta acquisition case.
    Severe disagreements around here are par for the course, 
and we go to great lengths every day on this Committee to 
demonstrate that. We sort out our differences by freely 
exchanging our views, confident that this process will separate 
truth from lies, wisdom from folly. A free society depends on 
people knowing the difference for themselves. Censoring speech 
is utterly destructive of this process.
    Can you explain why Commissioner Wilson's dissent 
criticizing your conduct was censored?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, I couldn't agree more that this 
type of debate and discussion is critical. Congress designed 
the FTC as a multimember commission, and we really enjoy 
internally those discussions and debates.
    Mr. McClintock. Well, obviously not, because her comments 
were, in her dissent, were censored. So, why was that? How do 
you explain that?
    Ms. Khan. So, the way the Commission procedures work is 
that I was walled off from those decisions. As the majority of 
the Commission explained, they were identifying nonpublic 
information relating to staff analysis and material protected 
by deliberative process that we have longstanding FTC policy, 
adopted during the Reagan Administration, that says we don't 
disclose that type of analysis because we don't want to chill--
    Mr. McClintock. This was specific to criticism of you. Did 
you have any discussions with your colleagues over this?
    Ms. Khan. No, again, I was totally walled off from the 
proceeding.
    Mr. McClintock. What do you see as the role of government 
in determining what is misinformation or, for that matter, hate 
speech?
    Ms. Khan. The FTC is focused on deceptive advertising, so I 
guess, if a company says something is made in America, but it 
is actually made in China, that from our perspective is fraud 
and deceptive--
    Mr. McClintock. Well, you were discussing Twitter just 
about an hour ago. Do you see the government having any role in 
determining what is misinformation or what is hate speech?
    Ms. Khan. We are not involved with that. Again, we are 
focused on deceptive advertising, like Made in USA fraud. That 
is really what we are focused on.
    Mr. McClintock. Let me ask you, what is your view of 
capitalism?
    Ms. Khan. Excuse me?
    Mr. McClintock. What is your view of capitalism?
    Ms. Khan. The FTC's job it to promote competition and--
    Mr. McClintock. Oh, no, what is your view of capitalism?
    Ms. Khan. Could you explain what you mean by that term?
    Mr. McClintock. Good system, bad system? What do you say is 
its strengths and weaknesses?
    Ms. Khan. So, I think open, competitive, robust, resilient 
markets are critical to America's economic success. The FTC has 
the honor of playing a really important role in ensuring that 
our markets are open and competitive and position America to 
compete globally.
    Mr. McClintock. Of course, the beauty of a capitalist 
system is the fact that consumers everyday vote with every 
dollar they spend on what the economy will produce and what 
prices they are willing to pay. Do you see a role in government 
in interposing its judgment for theirs?
    Ms. Khan. The role of the FTC is really one of a referee. 
We believe in open, competitive markets, but for these markets 
to deliver good outcomes, we need to make sure the companies 
are playing by the rules of fair competition. That is the job 
that Congress gave the FTC, and that is what we do.
    Mr. McClintock. I think you go much farther than that. I 
certainly hope that you will take to heart the economic 
criticisms that you have heard today. Mergers, for example, 
generally occur when companies determine that it is going to 
improve their efficiency, productivity, and hence their ability 
to serve their consumers. That grows the economy and it helps 
consumers.
    I would urge you to be very careful, and your colleagues, 
very careful and very humble with your powers. Because when 
your decisions harm the economy, you are also harming your 
administration. Now, the average consumer might not follow the 
day-to-day decisions of your commission, but they know how they 
are doing in their own lives.
    I will yield the balance of my time to the Chair.
    Chair Jordan. I will waive that. I appreciate the gentleman 
yielding, but--
    Mr. McClintock. Then I will yield back.
    Chair Jordan. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. The 
gentlelady from North Carolina, OK, North Carolina is 
recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Tom.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, 
Chair Khan, for joining us today.
    Also, thank you for mentioning your work on PBM reform in 
your opening statement. This is a very important issue for our 
healthcare industry, and as you pointed out, for the health of 
our constituents.
    This Congress I have been working with a bipartisan 
coalition of lawmakers to address abusive and exclusionary 
pricing practices by pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Access 
to affordable prescription drugs is a critical issue for all 
Americans. I am hopeful that the FTC will take substantive 
steps to address the ways in which PBMs take advantage of 
patients and providers in their pricing strategies.
    I know that you got a general question from Congresswoman 
Dean a little bit earlier, but I want to be much more specific. 
The FTC has been working on a 6(b) study since June 2022. When 
do you anticipate completing that study, and do you have any 
interim conclusions or findings that you can share with us 
today?
    Ms. Khan. Thanks, Congresswoman. As I noted, we recognize 
very deeply the urgency of this work because it potentially 
means that patients are not getting access to affordable 
medicines, and that, as we all know, can have life-or-death 
consequences. So, we are moving with great haste.
    We are dependent on the companies to provide us information 
in a timely way. We are trying to drive that forward as much as 
we can in general. Historically some of these studies at the 
agency have taken 4-5 years. My goal is for us to be able to 
move more expeditiously.
    I should also note that if, as a matter of course during 
this inquiry we instead identified practices that we would 
determine are unlawful, nothing would stop us from being able 
to focus on some of those law violations and proceed on the 
enforcement track instead.
    Ms. Ross. Great. Then also, the FTC recently expanded the 
scope of its PBM investigation to include group purchasing 
organizations, or GPOs, that have opened in recent years. How 
does the FTC believe that PBMs might be using these GPOs, and 
what kind of harm could they have in the market for affordable 
drugs?
    Ms. Khan. So, GPOs are another one of these kinds of 
entities that are not visible to consumers but play a really 
central middleman role in the market. We have sent out these 
additional requests because we want to make sure that we are 
getting a full 360 view of what is happening with these 
practices.
    I should also note we have all read stories about major 
shortages of critical drugs. We have also received letters and 
inputs suggesting that the role of the GPOs may also be 
contributing to some of those shortages of essential medicines, 
so that is something that is on our radar as well.
    Ms. Ross. Great. Given that the three large PBMs are 
currently--they currently control 80 percent of the market, I 
am interested in how consolidation within the PBM industry 
affects patient access and costs.
    In addition to this PBM consolidation, the largest drug 
plan sponsors also own their own PBMs. So, we are seeing a 
great deal of vertical integration as well.
    We know that PBMs set out to pocket costs based on full, 
undiscounted list prices of drugs, so patients don't see a lot 
of the PBM discounts at the pharmacy counter. We know that some 
health-plan-owned PBMs require patients to fill prescriptions 
only at certain pharmacies or providers, which reduces access.
    How are you seeing this consolidation and vertical 
integration impacting patients?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, it is such a great point. This is one of the 
issues on which we are routinely hearing from people. We opened 
a docket to kind of collect input around what people are seeing 
about PBM practices.
    We received thousands of patients--thousands of public 
comments, many of them from patients who were concerned that 
some of these decisions about which medicines the PBMs are 
putting on the formulary or not putting on is not being driven 
by what is best for the patient but is instead potentially 
being driven by which is going to give the PBM the highest 
rebate.
    So, I think that could be an instance where there is a 
conflict of interest between what is in the PBM's own interest 
and what is best for patients. So, that is something that we 
have heard a lot about.
    Ms. Ross. Final quick question, do you see a role for 
Congress in this area as well, not just what your agency does?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely. This is such an urgent problem 
relating to unaffordable drug prices for Americans that I think 
it is an all-hands-on-deck moment.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman 
from Texas is recognized.
    Mr. Roy. I thank the Chair. Ms. Khan, thanks for coming 
here testify before the Committee.
    Would you commit to me to provide all updates necessary 
with respect to the LIV Golf PGA Tour merger and all of youare 
looking into whatever is occurring with that?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, I believe it is our partners at 
the Justice Department that are looking at that.
    Mr. Roy. The FTC is also having some look into what is 
going on there, at least the news accounts I see. I would just 
appreciate any updates from your office about that and the 
concerns about it. I am going to yield the balance of my time 
to the Chair.
    Chair Jordan. Thank the gentleman for yielding.
    Ms. Khan, earlier, and I believe the gentleman from Arizona 
brought this up, you said people's privacy is paramount. I 
couldn't agree more. As we talked earlier, I do think there is 
bipartisan support to deal with that, this sweeping up of data 
that happens, and scarier yet is FBI purchasing that data. So, 
that is of paramount importance.
    I would say the First Amendment is of paramount importance 
too. Would you agree?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely.
    Chair Jordan. Then the gentleman from California, Mr. 
McClintock, asked you what is disinformation? You said you 
don't really have an opinion on that, is that a fair assessment 
of your answer?
    Ms. Khan. As part of our job at the FTC, we are focused on 
deception and fraud and that sort of thing.
    Chair Jordan. Well, you wrote a couple years ago in a Law 
Review article, ``Digital businesses such as Twitter disserve 
their users by facilitating the spread of disinformation.'' 
What were you talking about there then, what is disinformation?
    Ms. Khan. I am happy to take a closer look at the material 
you are mentioning, but as part of our work at the FTC, we have 
seen how fraud and scams can sometimes proliferate on these 
social media websites. We have launched an inquiry to try to 
understand why are some of these crypto scams really 
proliferating on these sites and what can we be doing--
    Chair Jordan. So, these are the first two sentences in the 
introduction of the piece you wrote, again, just a couple years 
ago. ``Digital businesses such as Twitter disserve their users 
by facilitating the spread of disinformation.'' Who decides 
what is disinformation?
    Ms. Khan. From the FTC's perspective, it is deception. 
Deception and fraud.
    Chair Jordan. That is fine, you can keep using synonyms, 
but I want to know who decides that it is deception, who 
decides that it is fraud, who decides that it is 
disinformation. In this case, you are talking about social 
media companies and what gets posted on their platform. Who 
decides what is disinformation, what isn't?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, again, at the FTC, we are 
focused on fraud and deception. There is a legal standard about 
what constitutes fraud. Again, this is about--
    Chair Jordan. You didn't say fraud or deception, you said 
disinformation. My concern is again, and it is probably the 
third time I have talked about this, but the sustained attack 
on Twitter when the ownership there changed and the platform 
was committed to not taking down speech, not taking down posts, 
allowing the sharing of information and not censoring.
    We just had a major decision last week from a court in 
Louisiana, Federal court in Louisiana, where they said the 
government was in fact pressuring Big Tech companies to censor 
and Big Tech companies willing to go along with it. Now, we 
have a change there and you are going after the one company 
that has changed how they are doing things.
    That is what concerns me, particularly, in light of the 
fact that you just wrote about this a few years ago saying this 
is what goes on.
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, I am glad to have the opportunity to 
clarify some issues here. So, we at the FTC have no view on who 
should or should not own a company. All we care about is that 
the company is following the law. That is really what our focus 
is--
    Chair Jordan. We have covered that ground. I want to know 
about disinformation and who decides what is disinformation. 
You think the government should decide that?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, the way I see it is concentrations 
of economic power including over speech platforms and 
communication platform, that it is that concentrated power and 
the ability to pick who gets heard, who doesn't get heard to 
make these types of decisions, that I think is concerning to 
all of us. The FTC's job is to be promoting--
    Chair Jordan. You know what kind of speech was getting 
censored? Do you know what the court said last week, what kind 
of--have you read the opinion, by the way?
    Ms. Khan. I have not. It did not concern the FTC.
    Chair Jordan. You know what kind of speech was getting 
censored, you know what the court said? Conservative speech. 
Conservative speech as well as all--the suppression was 
virtually all conservative. This is not Jim Jordan talking 
about it is not Republicans on the Judiciary Committee talking.
    This is the Federal judge who had the facts, 86 pages, the 
facts, and laid out and put the facts and the law together in 
his opinion, strong opinion, which said it was the conservative 
speech that was getting censored and labeled as disinformation.
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, I fully understand why, given 
the extreme concentration of power over some of these speech 
platforms, why people would be afraid and worried about 
censorship. I couldn't agree more that when you have a handful 
of people making decisions about what gets seen, what doesn't 
get seen, who gets heard--
    Chair Jordan. You think the remedy for that is for 
government to decide what is disinformation and what is not?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, at the FTC, our job is to promote 
competition. More competition means more people making these 
decisions, and I think that can alleviate some of the concerns 
about censorship that you are sharing.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
now recognizes the--is Georgia? Or yes, OK. I didn't know who 
had walked in first, or how the gentlelady from Georgia is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Good afternoon, Chair Khan, it is a pleasure to have you 
before us today. I have read your testimony. Thank you for your 
time and your testimony.
    Ensuring that emerging American businesses have an 
opportunity to grow and to thrive is essential for our economy, 
and one of the most American of practices, so to speak. America 
is a country that is built on the success of creative and 
innovative ideas. The determination of grit of its people is so 
vital, and the endless opportunities of its society.
    For these reasons, we must do all that we can in our power 
to support competition, as you have just mentioned, and fight 
monopolies, which crush American opportunities. A robust 
antitrust framework supports small businesses by helping to 
ensure that they are not intimidated into conciliation.
    It empowers the American people by allowing them freedom of 
choice in the marketplace. A robust antitrust framework 
strengthens American workers against monopolistic efforts to 
lower wages and eliminate their benefits.
    That is why it is so wonderful to have you here today. 
Thank you so much for being here at the helm of FTC. You have 
actually been a champion of enforcing America's antitrust and 
competition laws for years, and America's economy is much 
stronger for it.
    In fact, the U.S. has the highest post-pandemic growth of 
any Nation in the G7 and the lowest inflation, with a historic 
low unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, and that must be noted 
here today.
    As I spoke on earlier, enforcement of antitrust laws helps 
to promote fair competition across the United States economy 
while protecting consumers and workers from deceptive and 
unfair practices. Balancing competition and effective antitrust 
enforcement are critical to protecting our consumers, our 
workers, innovation, and economic equity in this country.
    Over the past 20 years, the U.S. has seen consolidation 
across all markets, whether it be in a nursing home industry, 
tech industry, or agriculture industry. Can you please comment 
on how this is applied in the context of large mergers that 
affect smaller competitors in the marketplace?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congresswoman, when we see mergers between 
two large firms, especially if they are competing in the same 
market, that can make it more difficult for newer entrants to 
come into the market.
    We have seen how entry barriers can be raised and 
independent firms, small businesses can have a difficult time 
really competing on a level playing field if the merger is 
leading to market power that allows the merged firms to get 
special types of terms or discriminatory benefits that are not 
available to others.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you. So, these past two terms, Congress 
has actually been examining the role of Big Tech companies and 
their exercise of market dominance, which has allowed them to 
make a profit and to leverage their gatekeeper power over small 
or new companies and competitors.
    Can you talk about the steps that you are taking to ensure 
smaller companies, especially in the tech marketplace, get a 
fair chance to compete against bigger, more entrenched 
companies?
    Ms. Khan. So, the FTC has been looking closely at digital 
markets since before I joined the Commission. One of the first 
actions that we took when I joined was refiling the FTC's 
amended complaint against Facebook, where the FTC is alleging 
that Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were 
anticompetitive and really helped Facebook maintain its 
dominance in ways that locked out rivals. It really hurt 
consumers at the end of the day.
    We are continuing to look closely at mergers and 
acquisitions to make sure that if we worry that these 
acquisitions are similarly going to create dominance and allow 
firms to maintain their monopoly, that we are acting swiftly 
there.
    Ms. McBath. So, under your tenure, FTC has endeavored to 
restore meaningful antitrust law enforcement over the last two 
years. In this process, the FTC has made some powerful enemies, 
have you not? Yes, you have, I can answer that for you.
    Ms. Khan. We hear from a lot of folks, yes.
    Ms. McBath. So, isn't the lesson learned here that 
antitrust agencies should trust vigorous competition and 
antitrust enforcement to deliver innovation and better 
services, rather than enabling entrenched gatekeepers to 
continue growing through acquisition in markets?
    Ms. Khan. Absolutely. I think America's history shows that 
when we promote fair and open competition, that is what best 
produces innovation and allows us to succeed.
    Ms. McBath. Thank, and I am out of time.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Thank you. I recognize the 
gentleman from Wisconsin for five minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much. I am not going to take 
five minutes; I am just going to take a real brief time here.
    We heard some of the same pablum yesterday. I don't have a 
question for the witness, but we heard some of the same stuff 
from the FBI yesterday that boy, we respect the Constitution 
and all the rest. Nonetheless, they are ending up censoring the 
American people.
    It was so interesting to hear yesterday when the Director 
of the FBI was here, and he said, well, these companies work 
within the free market. We can't change how they go about 
operating.
    When you have a Federal agency, whether it is the FBI or 
the FTC, that comes calling at your front door, and they say 
gosh maybe you should be doing things a little bit differently, 
they pay attention.
    I have used the example of the man who originated Facebook. 
He said in a podcast in the last year that in regard to the 
FBI, when they come calling, you are going to pay attention. 
Censorship happens from there.
    I hope that you are cognizant of that as you go about doing 
your business.
    Second thing that I would say is that we talked about 
entrenched gatekeepers and stuff like that. The barriers to 
entry that have been built here in Washington, DC, over the 
last few decades are significant. I can go back to two major 
bills that are over a decade old now, one being Obamacare, the 
other one being Dodd-Frank.
    We see probably the least entrepreneurship that has 
happened in the healthcare and finance banking industries that 
we have seen in decades because the barriers to entry are so 
high. I sure hope that you will respect that.
    That you, while building these regulations out here, while 
passing laws as happened over a decade ago in regard to 
Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, it has harmed the rest of America. It 
has harmed entrepreneurs. It has harmed main street America. 
When they no longer have a bank with their bank being 
consolidated into something that is bigger.
    So, you may say that boy, we are going to go after these 
big companies. Well, hell, we created them here. I hope you 
won't participate in creating additional barriers to entry so 
that entrepreneurs cannot participate in the free-market 
society that was built in the United States of America over the 
last nearly 250 years.
    I will yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. A couple questions I had. I just 
wanted, using a little bit of this time there. The gentleman 
from Georgia mentioned that he thought you were being treated 
unfairly, if you remember, at the beginning, that is about an 
1\1/2\ hour ago, and differently because of your ethnicity and 
because of your color.
    Do you believe that is true?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, I am focused on really--
    Mr. Van Drew. I know you are, but just--
    Ms. Khan. Very diligently the questions you are asking, I--
    Mr. Van Drew. I am just curious; do you believe that is 
true? Because if you watch the hearing, I was offended by it, 
to be honest with you. If you watch the hearing yesterday, we 
gave a gentleman a pretty thorough raking over asking some 
difficult questions.
    I hope that you know it has nothing to do with ethnicity or 
color. I hope you don't feel that way, and I was wondering if 
you do. It's a yes-or-no--
    Ms. Bush. A point of order.
    Mr. Van Drew. Yes?
    Ms. Bush. Mr. Chair, just wondering whose time we are using 
right--
    Mr. Van Drew. He yielded back his time to me.
    Ms. Bush. OK.
    Mr. Van Drew. He had time left over.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you.
    Mr. Van Drew. Mr. Tiffany. Yes, go ahead. Just give me a 
yes or no, do you think you are being treated fairly?
    Ms. Khan. It sounds like a robust debate among the 
Committee about these issues and I defer to you all.
    Mr. Van Drew. One of the things I would love to change is 
that when we ask people to say yes or no, they would. It is so 
hard when people come before us. I just wanted to say one other 
thing too, and then we will move on.
    Robocalls. I know you heard about them today. It is a 
really big deal. You want to talk about a way that you are 
affecting people's lives. They are sophisticated, they are 
scary. People are getting in trouble because of them in 
everything from social security to buying timeshares. It is a 
really big problem.
    I would love to, and I am going to speak to Mr. Correa, I 
would love to work with him across the aisle, love to work with 
whomever to do something about that issue.
    I have other questions for you later, but at this point I 
will recognize the gentlelady from Missouri.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you. St. Louis and I are here today in 
strong support of the rights of workers, of consumers, small 
businesses, and the broader public to be free from corporate 
greed that monopolizes our access to information and treats 
employees and communities as expendable.
    Thank you for being here, Chair Khan. I appreciate your 
service as a staffer on this Committee, your groundbreaking 
scholarship on antitrust law and antimonopoly issues, and your 
record of accomplishments as FTC Chair.
    The Commission has an important role to play in protecting 
our economy from the harms caused by greedy, reckless 
corporations that put profit and power over people. Look at Big 
Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and any other concentrated industry, 
these companies and the profit-obsessed executives behind them 
have abused their power for too long, and it is time that they 
be held accountable.
    So, we absolutely need to level the playing field for 
workers and consumers. The FTC can and is trying to help under 
your leadership, and I appreciate that, because it makes a real 
difference in communities like mine.
    For example, in recent years, FTC lawsuits have resulted in 
more than $33 million provided to more than 178,000 
Missourians. In 2020 alone, the FTC provided $8.6 million to 
people in Missouri, including St. Louis.
    That is real money for real people harmed by corporate 
greed. It is food on the table, it is a roof over a head, it is 
clothing for a child. Another example was the FTC's proposed 
rule to ban noncompete agreements.
    Chair Khan, as was brought up earlier, banning noncompete 
agreements is estimated to raise wages by over $200 billion 
each year and to close racial and gender wage gaps by up to 9.1 
percent. Is that correct?
    Ms. Khan. Congresswoman, as we laid out in our notice of 
proposed rulemaking, those are some of the estimated effects, 
yes.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you. It is a lot of money in the pockets of 
workers and Black and Brown people and women, in particular. 
Can you explain specifically how banning noncompete agreements 
means workers will get paid more?
    Ms. Khan. So, what our staff did is they looked very 
closely at the empirical evidence that has now surfaced in 
light of the different State policies that we have seen.
    What we have seen is that states that have limited 
noncompetes are able to ensure that workers are moving around 
more freely. Though, unfortunately, we still see that all too 
often companies are still trying to include noncompetes.
    What we have also seen is that being able to switch jobs, 
being able to move freely between jobs and get better job 
opportunities is a key mechanism that workers have to use to be 
able to get higher wages and better employment opportunities.
    When you freeze workers in place, when you lock them in 
place through these noncompetes, that means that they are not 
able to go across the street, even though the firm across the 
street is offering them better wages or better working 
conditions, and that is bad for workers.
    Ms. Bush. Absolutely. Thank you, and that is a real impact 
that will save lives. Republicans don't like this. The party 
that is in the pocket of White supremacists and wealthy 
corporations will talk a big game about fighting for everyday 
people and then show up to Congress and do whatever their 
corporate donors want them to do.
    That is what these attacks, that is what this is about. So, 
let me be clear. There is nothing unethical about standing up 
for workers, consumers, and small businesses. There is nothing 
unethical about enforcing the law against powerful and 
destructive companies like Amazon, Meta, and Twitter. There is 
nothing unethical about putting your principles into practice.
    What is unethical is being apologists for the corporate 
greed that is fleecing our communities. What is unethical is 
claiming to care about workers, and then selling them out. That 
is the real ethics scandal here, and we need not forget it.
    The bottom line is that corporate monopolies are a recipe 
for social destruction. Any lawmakers who claim to stand for 
workers and consumers must advocate against dominance by large 
private companies that care more about profit than people. We 
need to aggressively enforce our antitrust laws for the 
purposes Congress intended.
    We also need to move beyond a digital economy dominated by 
billionaire-owned for-profit companies.
    Chair Khan, you have never tried to hide who you are or 
what you believe, and I admire you for that. I thank you for 
your leadership, and I look forward to working with you and 
your agency on these critical issues.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Thank you. I recognize the 
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Bishop.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Khan--is this working? Yes, I guess they hear it. 
Someone pointed out to me that just this morning the FTC--well, 
it was disclosed the FTC sent a civil investigative demand to 
OpenAI. Are you familiar with that?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, this involves nonpublic information, 
but if it has been publicly reported then it may be accurate. I 
am hesitant to share anything nonpublic in this--
    Mr. Bishop. It is on Twitter. It seems to be asking among 
other things for whether ChatGPT or whatever other products 
they would generate statements about persons. Can you explain 
the gist of that or what is the regulatory authority of the FTC 
that it is that civil investigative demand is being issued 
under?
    Ms. Khan. So, as a general matter, some of the concerns 
that we are seeing in this AI space is that ChatGPT and some of 
the other services are being fed a huge trove of data. There 
are no checks on what type of data is being inserted into these 
companies.
    We have heard about reports where people's sensitive 
information is showing up in response to an inquiry from 
somebody else. We have heard about libel, defamatory 
statements, flatly untrue things are emerging. That is the type 
of fraud and deception that we are concerned about.
    Mr. Bishop. So, as a general proposition, and you just said 
something, you spoke to libel and slander or defamation issues. 
I am going to come to that, because that is an issue of State 
law as I understand it.
    Is your regulatory reach there defined by the FTC act? Is 
that the basis under which you guys explore, investigate that 
stuff with a company like OpenAI?
    Ms. Khan. So, it is absolutely true that we don't directly 
address those things. We are focused on is their substantial 
injury to people.
    Mr. Bishop. Yes.
    Ms. Khan. Injury can look like all sorts of things.
    Mr. Bishop. So, like, and you were speaking earlier in 
communication with the Chair or your colloquy with the Chair 
about Twitter, the Twitter background of releasing private 
information.
    Was that also subject to your regulatory reach under the 
FTC act because it was somehow deceptive? Or is there some 
other statutory source that generally puts you guys in charge 
of sensitive information about people?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, it is the FTC act that prohibits unfair or 
deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition. That is 
primarily the authority we have used in these instances.
    Mr. Bishop. OK, and that is interesting. Just for the 
people in the public, the operative language of Section 5 that 
you guys I think are using there and in the context of the 
noncompete rule that you have come out with, it just says,

         . . . unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce 
        and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting 
        commerce are hereby declared unlawful.

Right, that is the language?
    Ms. Khan. That is right.
    Mr. Bishop. So that, it is not really very detailed. Let me 
ask you for a minute about the noncompete rule. So, you guys 
have this proposed rule you are seeking comments on. 
Administrative process, then once those comments are reviewed, 
you guys will decide, the FTC will decide whether to proceed 
with a final rule. Is that the way it works basically?
    Ms. Khan. That is correct.
    Mr. Bishop. So, in that case, I litigated these types of 
contracts in State law for 30 years, and in North Carolina. I 
know California has a rule that absolutely bans them. There are 
different renditions of law, some statutory, some made by the 
courts over time in States all over the country, and there have 
been for a long, long time.
    So, what your rule would do would displace all that State 
contract law in one fell swoop if it were made final, wouldn't 
it?
    Ms. Khan. It would create a new floor, yes.
    Mr. Bishop. It would create a what?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, it would be creating a new provision that 
would be determining that these noncompetes are ruled unlawful.
    Mr. Bishop. So, you would not only--and it would be per se. 
I know some of the stuff stated in your notice of proposed 
rulemaking that I glimpsed said it would be that you saw these 
as inherently coercive or the product of unequal bargaining 
power.
    The rule would be per se, except for a very narrow 
category, the overwhelming majority would be per se, even if 
the people involved in those contracts wanted to make them, 
right?
    Ms. Khan. That is the proposal. We did ask as part of our 
notice of proposed rulemaking some questions about whether 
there are adjustments we should make.
    Mr. Bishop. OK, and I don't want to get into the minor 
details because we only got 30 seconds left. Let me just ask 
you this, because if you take that example or many of the 
others that have been talked about, you spoke a moment ago 
about being concerned about concentrations of economic power. I 
get that.
    Isn't there a basis to be concerned about concentration of 
legal power, lawmaking power? So, you got 30,000 State judges 
have made those rules, you got 7,558 State legislators, you got 
lots of Members of Congress, you got multiple chambers in 
Congress.
    The fact that you really as the bare majority on the FTC 
could make such a ruling, isn't that something that Congress 
should concerned about, how much power you wield?
    Ms. Khan. So, we make these determinations pursuant to 
authority that Congress has given us. When we promulgate rules 
pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, there are a whole 
set of procedural protections that go into play relating to the 
comment periods that we have to use to get public input.
    There are certain standards of review for judicial review. 
There are so many checks as part of this process, and it is 
really quite regular for administrative agencies to be engaging 
in rulemaking.
    Mr. Bishop. You get to say what is unfair, right?
    Ms. Khan. So, interestingly, Congress, when passing the FTC 
act, was having a debate. They said should we actually define, 
should we list out in the statute all the practices that should 
be unfair.
    Congress determined businesses are so innovative, they will 
find ways to do an end-run around any of the practices we list. 
Let's allow the FTC to use their expertise to make sure that as 
markets are evolving, as business trends are evolving, that 
they can make sure that their statutory authority is keeping 
pace.
    So, this was a determination and decision that Congress 
made to use that language, and we follow the text of the law.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you, ma'am, I wish had more time. Yield 
back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] I recognize the gentlewoman from 
Vermont.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Before I begin my line of questioning, I just want to make 
note of something. Our Republican colleagues have touched a few 
times today on the words of a third-party auditor who was 
deposed as part of the Twitter lawsuit.
    I think it is really important to point out for the sake of 
transparency that this deposition was filed last night, and 
here we are talking about it today.
    I believe in coincidence, I really do, but that is a pretty 
lucky coincidence that a pretty--that evidence supposedly 
providing the Republican accusations today was released in such 
a timely manner. So, I think it is really important to make 
note of that.
    Chair Khan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for 
being here to the bitter end. I really appreciate your 
testimony this morning.
    I would like to touch on a extremely timely and 
controversial issue, which is artificial intelligence. 
Specifically, I would like your thoughts on generative AI and 
competition.
    It is tough to imagine online platforms gaining even more 
power, but it seems that Big Tech firms who control their own 
AI systems and access to cloud data are in a position to do 
just that. I find that alarming, as do many of my constituents 
back in Vermont.
    So, what I would like to ask you is how could AI technology 
lead to an even more consolidated internet landscape with even 
few choices for consumers?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, let me say, first, these moments 
of technological disruption, when you have these game-changing 
technologies enter the market, these moments oftentimes provide 
a lot of opportunity for disruption and for displacing some of 
the existing incumbents and giants. So, there's always a chance 
that will be the effect.
    I think you're right that, with these technologies, we see 
inputs required, required here that really favor dominance and 
favor scale. So, you need huge amounts of compute; you need 
access to huge amounts of data; the models.
    Our staff recently published a blog post laying out what 
some of these competition concerns could be, but I think you're 
absolutely right that we all need to be very vigilant to make 
sure that this potentially transformative technology is not 
further consolidating market power in ways that could really 
harm competition.
    Ms. Balint. How would a firm use AI and cloud access to 
illegally expand their market power? What would that look like?
    Ms. Khan. So, I don't want to get into hypotheticals, but 
the types of--as we lay out in the blog post--traditionally, 
the types of concerns that you might have is if firms with 
market power or conditioning access to one set of technologies 
and critical inputs, on firms having to also buy other 
services, those types of tying agreements, and especially when 
they're having an exclusionary effect, can be concerning under 
the antitrust laws.
    Ms. Balint. Are you concerned about this issue in relation 
to the digital markets?
    Ms. Khan. In general, we're very concerned about 
competition in digital markets, yes.
    Ms. Balint. OK. In my last time here, I also wanted to 
touch on another issue, which is dark patterns. Amazon Prime 
has reached a point where it's practically impossible to avoid. 
FTC recently took Amazon to task for using a series of digital 
tricks or dark patterns to enroll people in Prime without their 
consent or to prevent people from canceling their subscription. 
This is something that I hear a lot from my constituents about.
    Last year, the agency reported that, quote,

        More and more companies are using digital dark patterns to 
        trick people into buying products and giving away their 
        personal information.

How common is it for online companies to use these dark 
patterns?
    Ms. Khan. Unfortunately, through our work, we've seen that 
it is too common; that we see companies using these tricks. Our 
staff published a report going into detail about the different 
types of dark patterns that we see, which, in practice, end up 
tricking or manipulating people into making choices that 
they're not really seeking to make.
    So, we want to make sure that we're fully grasping how 
these dark patterns are working. We've been bringing onboard a 
whole set of technologists that are able to kind of dig deep; 
look under the hood; figure out what's really going on. So, 
it's going to continue to be an area of focus for us.
    Ms. Balint. Something that you said there really, really 
struck me. It is, essentially, about taking away people's 
choice. When you're not transparent about the ways in which 
consumers are being entrapped into signing up for something or 
not being able to cancel something, that is taking away their 
ability to vote with their dollars, essentially, which is 
something we've heard about in this hearing today.
    What effect does this, then, have on competition and 
privacy and innovation? Just briefly.
    Ms. Khan. So, we want to make sure that companies are 
competing on honesty. We don't want honest businesses to lose 
out to firms that are engaging in dark patterns and these types 
of deceptive practices. So, there's a consumer protection 
dimension to it, but, as you noted, there's also a competition 
dimension.
    Ms. Balint. I really appreciate that. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Thank you.
    I recognize the gentleman from Oregon.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you for being here today and for your patience. I 
disagree with the ``bitter end'' phraseology that was used. I 
think the entire conversation has been extraordinarily 
interesting, and I appreciate your being here to share your 
thoughts.
    I'll set this up with a standard question. Do you agree 
with the following statement from former Commissioner Wilson?

        The agency lacks the expertise (and, in some cases, the 
        jurisdiction) to pursue the additional societal goals embodied 
        in the Strategic Plan.

Jumping just to the phrase ``unwarranted health, safety, and 
privacy risks''--I'm actually looking at the plan right now. 
``For example, unwarranted health, safety, and privacy risks,'' 
tell me how that, those became part of the focus of the FTC? 
Because that seems to be an expansion of what the FTC used to 
focus on. Or maybe I'm wrong. That's how my question is set up, 
my first one.
    Ms. Khan. So, I think you said, ``unwarranted safety, 
health, and privacy risks,'' is that right?
    Mr. Bentz. Yes. Actually, I'm just reading from,

        The FTC focuses on investigating and litigating conduct that 
        causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to the public. 
        This includes not only monetary injury, but also, for example, 
        unwarranted health, safety, and privacy risks.

    Ms. Khan. So, the statute says that an unfair practice is 
one that causes--one of the problems is substantial injury. 
Substantial injury is not defined, but, for years now, the FTC 
has interpreted that, and courts have ratified that, to mean 
not just monetary harm, not just losing money, but certain 
types of harm to wellness and safety and health. So, some of 
the deceptive advertising cases--
    Mr. Bentz. Are you referring to courts? Is that what you 
said?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Mr. Bentz. OK. So, just because I want to move on, if you 
could provide me with the cases that you're referring to, 
please? So that I can see the courts that you're relying on for 
that, that effort.
    Now, let me slide that aside and let me go to the next 
issue. This is one, of course, that you brought up in your 
famous paper, the ``Amazon's Antitrust Paradox.'' The issue 
is--and forgive me; I'm not an expert in this space. I didn't 
even take this class in law school. So, my question--
antitrust--so, my question is: What, if not the consumer 
welfare standard, what standard? I'm, basically, lifting this 
right out of Bork's book--about 25 hours I'll never get back 
that I went and spent reading it. My question to you is: If not 
that standard, what standard are you going to apply? Do you 
still apply just that sole standard in determining the 
challenges that bigness creates?
    Ms. Khan. So, we applied the text of the statutes that 
Congress passed, and we look closely at the language in the 
statutes that Congress passed, consistent with legal precedent. 
There are some case holdings related--
    Mr. Bentz. If I may--
    Ms. Khan. Yes.
    Mr. Bentz. If I recall correctly, before Bork's learned 
treatise, there was mishmash of legal precedent. You could 
select among almost any standard. That's one of the reasons he 
was so clear in stating what he thought would be the proper 
standard. That is the best for the consumer.
    So, I'm asking you, if you're going to move away from that 
standard--what he so artfully articulates in his book--what is 
the new standard?
    Ms. Khan. So, we're focused on the law, including the case 
law, not on a--
    Mr. Bentz. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
    Ms. Khan. Yes.
    Mr. Bentz. I just pointed out that, before Bork, there was 
any number of standards. Just grab one. So, when you say you're 
looking at ``the law,'' which law?
    Ms. Khan. The Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, the FTC Act, 
the Safe Harbor Act--
    Mr. Bentz. OK. Those are extraordinarily--they were, they 
were written to be very broad and to give you the power to try 
to control this, this economy that we've got. Bork went in and 
tried to find some sort of a--create some sort of a standard 
against which you could measure your actions. His ideas were 
accepted.
    I think your article--this way better than anybody in this 
room. So, my question is, what's the new standard? Don't, 
please don't take me into the law and don't do that. Tell me, 
what do you have that's better than what Bork suggested?
    Ms. Khan. So, in instances where the Supreme Court has 
said, for example, that the Sherman Act should be interpreted 
consistent with consumer welfare, of course, we look closely at 
that. The Sherman Act is not the only statute, right? For the 
FTC, we're charged with prohibiting unfair methods of 
competition. I think it's incredibly important for us to honor 
Congress' intent in creating multiple--
    Mr. Bentz. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop. You're a lot 
of generalizations. What's the standard that you are suggesting 
to take the place of the consumer welfare? What is your 
standard? Please don't give me generalizations.
    Ms. Khan. So, the standard depends on the statute that 
we're enforcing because each statutory scheme is slightly 
different. When we're enforcing the FTC Act, the words of the 
FTC Act are ``unfair methods of competition.'' That's the 
standard we're enforcing. We laid out a policy statement last 
year that laid out in very clear and in great detail what that 
standard means, reflecting a century of case law.
    Mr. Bentz. So, I'm out of time, but I will look at your 
explanation, and I appreciate your time here today. Thank you.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] We are going to take a five-
minute recess, and we're going to strictly adhere to that. It 
will be five minutes.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] I recognize the gentlelady from 
Texas--Florida. I'm sorry. My God.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Both the Texas folks and the 
Florida folks are going to get mad at me now.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Good afternoon, Chair Khan. I'd like to focus our attention 
on the recent Notice of Rulemaking and proposed changes to the 
premerger notification form requirements and instructions. So, 
this new proposed rule would require submission of substantial 
additional documents from what is currently the status quo, 
including draft agreements and term sheets, as opposed to just 
the final proposal for review; information about creditors, 
minority shareholders, officers, directors; and information on 
labor markets; data about workforce, including geographic 
information about employees, and details about prior penalties 
and findings by the NLRB, is that right--among other things?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, we issued a proposal of suggestions for 
additional information that we'd be getting.
    Another key area would be foreign subsidies. So, Congress 
told us to get information about whether firms that are looking 
to merge are getting subsidies from China or other countries--
    Ms. Lee. So, thank you. In summary, this proposed rule 
would substantially expand the types and volumes of documents 
and information that are being submitted as part of this 
premerger review process, correct?
    Ms. Khan. That's right.
    Ms. Lee. OK. We also know that this rule, this new rule, if 
adopted, would substantially affect the time and the cost 
associated for entities who want to participate and make 
submissions under the premerger review process. Correct?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, people would have to comply with the new 
form which is seeking additional information.
    Ms. Lee. Right. Your agency, in fact, has estimated that 
this would increase by over 100 hours the time necessary to 
compile compliance documents to make this submission, and in 
some cases, in some of the more complex or larger cases, even 
much more than the 100 hours. Correct?
    Ms. Khan. These are some of the estimates in the NPRM, yes.
    Ms. Lee. Yes. The internal estimate also identified a cost 
estimated at $350 million impact for the change in the rule for 
compliance, is that right?
    Ms. Khan. That's on the higher end. I will say, a lot of 
this will depend on the complexity of the transaction. If 
you're seeing a merger between two fairly small firms that 
don't have any complex holdings or that sort of thing, I 
imagine it would be much less.
    Ms. Lee. You just raised a very interesting point, and it 
was one of the things that I wanted to ask about. So, if we 
know, going in, that the time and the cost now associated with 
this premerger review process--the time is going to increase; 
the cost is going to increase--won't this affect the businesses 
that are at the lowest end of the reporting thresholds the 
most? Would they be the least able to incur those costs and 
time without affecting their overall margins?
    Ms. Khan. So, again, it really will depend on the 
complexity of the merger. If it's a fairly simple transaction, 
I imagine it will be much easier to comply.
    I should also note, this is all about what firms need to 
produce on the front end. It's our belief that, by getting more 
information on day one, that will allow us to more efficiently 
and effectively administer the laws in ways that could create 
more certainty for businesses on the back end. We're able to--
    Ms. Lee. At the conceptual level, the large corporations--
the ones, in fact, that I believe you're probably the most 
concerned about--the very largest corporations are the ones who 
are the most capable of saying, ``Yes, let's bring in our 
outside counsel and spend a few couple more hundred hours,'' or 
``Let's allocate additional costs to go through this process.'' 
They will be the ones who could most easily absorb this change, 
as opposed to the smaller entities at the lower end of that 
threshold.
    Now, let's go here: So, by expanding the types of documents 
by the types of information that you all are reviewing in 
assessing whether a merger should be approved and allowed to 
proceed, you're really expanding the bases upon which the FTC 
could choose to approve, seek more information, or disapprove, 
are you not?
    Ms. Khan. We're still squarely focused on whether the 
merger may substantially lessen competition or tend to create 
the monopoly. That remains our legal standard. We're seeking--
    Ms. Lee. How is it that some of the information that you're 
requesting, though, such as demographic information about 
employees, or information about shareholders and officers, how 
would that relate back to that core mission that you all have 
been pursuing prior to now?
    Ms. Khan. So, issues relating to officers or things like, 
potentially, overlapping directorates, those can affect, for 
example, Section 8 of the Clayton Act in terms of if you have 
interlocking directorates. So, those are some issues in which 
they're squarely within the confines of the antitrust laws.
    Ms. Lee. So, let me ask this then: The proposed rule, it's 
something that you all have, have developed, in essence, 
because you believe that it would have a significant impact, 
correct, on mergers, on the health of the economy, on 
businesses? You're pursuing this because you think it's 
meaningful. Correct?
    Ms. Khan. We're pursuing it because we think it will allow 
the FTC to administer the laws that Congress has charged us 
with more effectively and efficiently.
    Ms. Lee. So, you believe it's consequential?
    Mr. Van Drew. Go ahead. The last question.
    Ms. Khan. We think it will meaningful to enable the FTC to 
do its job, yes.
    Ms. Lee. Without a specific mandate from Congress to engage 
in this behavior. Correct?
    Ms. Khan. I disagree with that. The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act 
allows the agencies to get information on the front end, when 
firms governed by this law are required to do so. We're acting 
pursuant to that authority.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The time has expired.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] I recognize the gentlelady from 
Indiana.
    Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, Commissioner Khan, for being here. So, I wanted 
to bring two issues, and I would like you to respond.
    First, I belong to a group of people, even though I very 
much agree with Mr. Tiffany that the majority of monopoly 
problems which are significant, because we created these 
monopolies, incentivizes monopoly. Unfortunately, we created 
more companies now too big to fail. All the laws that we try to 
deal with them, including the Dodd-Frank Act, which I was 
actually one of the implementers when I worked in public 
accounting, now created this institution even bigger. Now, 
we're going to be dealing with that.
    I also understand those are, too, now, some of the areas 
where we have now problems so big that it involves us to look 
at the barriers of entry, like healthcare, and then, look in 
what are we going to deal now these monopolies that are 
distorting the market and using their aggressive behaviors to 
suppress consumers, to suppress competitors, and really not 
delivering value, because they can. They are not a natural 
monopoly. We created it. We have to look at that.
    So, I think your agency has an important function, but, 
unfortunately--and I want you to really respond--that we have a 
lot of concerns from the Republican side, and that the agency 
is being politicized and the agency is being used to really--
the hammer and sickle and to actually to pick, kind of in a 
fashion to pick losers and winners.
    It's becoming a problem. If you look at your even the 
missions that you set and the objectives you set, where we 
really need to have more work together for consumer protection 
and competition. You want your agency shapes distribution of 
power. I truly don't believe that is the agency's--I think the 
agency should be dealing with the real abusers in the system 
that want to not have competition, use monopolistic power. So, 
even in the statements, it's a problem.
    I would like--I think we have one common ground, that it 
seems like a lot of times we have a lot of talk on healthcare, 
but when we come to the action--it's even recently--we put it 
on the table with President Biden's Administration on dealing 
with with site-neutral-type payments and hospitals that's been 
gypping Medicare--total abuse of power. Allowing them to buy 
private practices; allowed them to put these doctors in crazy 
noncompetes, enslave them. Building Taj Mahals, not paying 
taxes. Investing billions in Wall Street and paid billions to 
executives by subsidies that now our country's going bankrupt 
on, because we're sort of outspending on healthcare and not 
delivering value.
    They didn't want to deal with that. Then, you have a 
challenge now because a lot of these answers is nonprofits, 
which is really it doesn't even have guidance. Like the next 
business I'm going to have, is going to be tax-exempt. You 
don't have a full jurisdiction to deal with these entities, and 
no one has. I would like you to deal with that.
    Now, my colleagues here have concerns. Now, we have, 
actually, a bipartisan bill, but a lot more people here feel 
concerned with you, that you are not going to be enforcing it 
properly and will use it as a power to actually pick losers and 
winners again.
    So, I wanted you to see how you can respond with what you 
are doing in this area. I think there is a PBM probably common 
ground. We have that area. If we look at that, 50-60 percent 
expanders hospitals and physicians. Five to 10 is actually only 
spent on drugs. So, this is a huge amount of money.
    How would you respond what you are doing on that and how 
you would address some of these Republican concerns? Because I 
think your agency has some functions, but, unfortunately, 
everything gets so politicized. A lot of people here on my side 
of the aisle don't feel comfortable to give any more power to 
your agency.
    Ms. Khan. Thanks for the question, Congresswoman. You're 
absolutely right, we have a whole set of workstreams underway 
relating to healthcare markets. We're concerned about 
instances, in which, monopolistic practices or a lack of 
competition in healthcare markets may be raising prices for 
consumers, may be depriving them of access to quality 
healthcare.
    Our teams have for many years now been challenging hospital 
mergers, where they've determined that the merger would either 
raise prices or lessen competition in ways that was harming 
patients.
    We have work underway, as we talked about extensively 
today, relating to PBMs and the potential conflicts of interest 
that are created through their vertical integration, as well as 
issues that may be created through the rebate schemes that they 
have in place.
    We also have work looking more directly at drug prices and 
whether mergers and acquisitions done by pharmaceutical 
companies may be inhibiting innovation, may be keeping lower-
cost alternatives out of the hands of American patients.
    So, that's all work that we have underway and we're working 
hard to move quickly on all that.
    Ms. Spartz. My time has expired. We still need to figure 
out how you can address concerns of my colleagues.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields back.
    I recognize the gentleman from Texas.
    Mr. Gooden. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's good to have you 
here today. I'd like to talk about the Horseracing Integrity 
and Safety Act's--well, it's called the Horseracing Integrity 
and Safety Authority, which Congress created and put under your 
Commission's rulemaking authority. I know you didn't ask for 
this, but you got it.
    I've got some questions. They're not complaints directed 
toward you or your leadership, but I just would like to say 
that I'm very disappointed in how they have operated. The HISA 
was intended to improve safety and fairness in horseracing. 
It's fallen short of its promises.
    Some of the issues I have, I'm not even sure you're aware 
of. When I'm done, I want to ask, so we can sit down and talk 
about it more.
    The FTC has allowed them to operate in a way that they are 
making rules, I believe, without the authority, or without any 
oversight. There's also a budget of $66 million. My question 
is, does the FTC monitor how these funds are being spent and 
who the recipient of their budget funds is going to?
    Ms. Khan. So, the statutory scheme lays out the 
relationship between the FTC and this kind of self-regulatory 
organization. You're right that we didn't ask for this 
authority. To be honest, it's been a bit of a challenge for us 
fully implementing it. We don't have real deep expertise in 
this area.
    On your specific question, to be honest, I'm not totally 
sure. I don't think we have that authority to be overseeing how 
they use their money.
    Mr. Gooden. OK.
    Ms. Khan. I'm happy to get back to you on that.
    Mr. Gooden. Separately, if the FTC enforcement staff was 
investigating an antitrust case and thought it needed to 
conduct a search of a business' premise, would the FTC need a 
search warrant for that search?
    Ms. Khan. Presumably, though I do know that, I believe it's 
Section 9 of the FTC Act, does give the FTC ability to engage 
in some of that activity as well.
    Mr. Gooden. All right. I would just let you know that this 
authority under your supervision can conduct a search without a 
warrant. They can also impose an immediate suspension on 
horses, trainers, and owners, if there's any evidence of 
suspicion of doping.
    One of the reasons they were created was because of the 
deaths in the horseracing in the past. We've seen just this 
year that even more deaths have happened. I would make a case 
that this authority is poorly run and operating in a way that I 
suspect, if all of you really knew, you would disapprove of. I 
would like to sit and talk with all of you you about that after 
this hearing down the road.
    Moving on, I want to talk about some of the mergers and the 
policies with respect to those. I'm specifically curious--
because I'm looking at a letter that Senator Warren sent you in 
January of this year about some pharmaceutical mergers--how 
much interaction does her staff or her have with you with 
respect to these? Do they have influence with the direction all 
of you go on some of these investigations?
    Ms. Khan. Congressman, we hear routinely from Members of 
Congress. We get letters week after week, including from many 
Members of this Committee. We take all that under advisement 
and want to understand what are the Members' concerns.
    Any law enforcement decisions that we're making, we're 
making on an independent basis, based on the facts and law 
before us.
    Mr. Gooden. Well, I'm looking at, particularly, the Amgen 
and Horizon merger, which I understand was moving along pretty, 
pretty well. It's different than some of these mergers that she 
mentions in this letter that I'm reading, and I know all of you 
probably have a copy of. I'll get you one, if you don't.
    Horizon is an Irish company. It's kind of a special case 
because it inverted in 2014 by acquiring this Irish company. 
So, they actually left the U.S. for tax benefits. Now, Amgen, 
as I understand it, is looking to acquire this company. They're 
involved in totally different drugs. What this would do is 
actually bring a company back to the United States, which I 
believe is a goal that we all share, is bringing industry here 
at home.
    So, I would also ask, especially since it seems to have 
been stopped right after Senator Warren sent this letter, if I 
could sit down with you all at some point and we talk about 
this one as well. Can we commit to doing that?
    Ms. Khan. We'll be happy to have a followup conversation 
with you, yes, Congressman.
    Mr. Gooden. I appreciate your work and thank you very much 
for being here.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. We 
are going to take a recess. We have to vote. As soon as votes 
are completed, we will be back. Thank you. You're going to get 
a long recess now.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Call the meeting back into 
order.
    We will start with the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Moran.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Khan, I would like to talk to you about something you 
said earlier today when you were talking with Mr. Massie. You 
said, quote,

        We do things to make sure that the market has clarity . . . . 
        To make sure that the market has clarity.

Was the quote I wrote down from you?
    I was glad you brought that up because the 2nd Circuit, as 
you know, back in 1984, said of the FTC, quote,

        The Commission owes a duty to define the conditions under which 
        conduct would be unfair, so that businesses will have an 
        inkling as to what they can lawfully do, rather than be left in 
        a State of complete unpredictability.

    By moving away from the consumer welfare standard, I would 
posit that the FTC has, effectively, created a moving goalpost 
standard. Mr. Bentz pressed you on that with several questions, 
and you just said, ``Well, basically, it kind of depends case-
by-case. We're going to look at different laws.'' Is that, 
effectively, the summary of what you said and the guidance that 
was provided last year in the policy statement regarding the 
scope of unfair methods of competition under Section 5 of the 
FTC?
    Ms. Khan. So, Section 5 of the FTC Act is a different 
statutory scheme than the Sherman Act. So, we look at case law 
that's specific to Section 5 and specific to the FTC Act, when 
interpreting that provision.
    Mr. Moran. With respect to that November 10, 2022, 
dissenting statement of Commissioner Christine Wilson as it 
relates to that, Section 5 of the FTC and the policy statement, 
she stated this, quote:

        Unfortunately, instead of providing meaningful guidance to 
        businesses, the policy statement announces that the Commission 
        has the authority summarily to condemn, essentially, any 
        business conduct it finds distasteful.

Did it concern you that one of the Commissioners would issue 
such a statement and reach such a conclusion?
    Ms. Khan. So, the benefits of having a multi-member 
Commission are that we can have that discussion and debate and 
disagreement, and we always take seriously input that we're 
getting from other Members of the Commission.
    As you'll in the policy statement itself, it has--well, it 
reflects decades of case law that our team took a very close 
look at to make sure that we were hewing very closely to the 
text of the statute, as well as the relevant precedent.
    Mr. Moran. With respect to the early terminations issue 
that Mr. Bentz talked to you about earlier, I sent you a letter 
earlier this year about that issue, and you wrote, in response, 
that ``Granting early terminations'' causes--or ``consumes 
agency resources.'' Can you explain how reinstating the early 
terminations diverts agency resources?
    Ms. Khan. Sure. So, our staff is reviewing merger filings. 
They're in the process of litigating. They're investigating. 
When they are looking at the HSR filings, their primary goal, 
our statutory mandate, is to be identifying transactions that 
may violate the Clayton Act or any of the other antitrust laws. 
Granting early termination is a discretionary function. So, we 
decide to put resources toward the mandatory functions in the 
statute over the discretionary ones.
    Mr. Moran. For years, that early termination policy allowed 
the FTC to allow mergers and acquisitions of a small size or 
size where there was really no competition issue really 
presented, for you to go ahead and give surety to those 
businesses that they could proceed with those mergers and 
acquisitions. That's no longer the case in the FTC, right?
    You're holding businesses in limbo because you're giving 
them these letters and saying, ``Well, we're going to look at 
it. We're not sure.'' Then, businesses have trouble moving 
forward with those mergers and acquisitions because sometimes 
the financing is tied up in the timeframe that they need a 
quick M&A. Is that, is that true or that untrue?
    Ms. Khan. So, Congressman, the context here is, we're 
talking about 30 days the firms have to wait before they are 
able to consummate if they don't hear from the agencies. In the 
past, maybe firms would have gotten early termination on day 
25. Now, they're not getting it. After day 30, they're able to 
consummate.
    So, we've decided that, as a matter of where we're 
allocating our resources, it's a better use of resources to be 
identifying which transactions may be creating problems for 
consumers, for workers, for honest businesses, rather than 
prioritize the kind of five days that firms may have gotten in 
the past.
    Mr. Moran. It seems that a lot of the resources, when you 
talk about allocation of resources, have been going toward new 
rulemaking in the FTC, rather than actually working through 
some of these issues that you guys are looking at--some of 
which you should be looking at; some of which you probably 
shouldn't be looking at.
    Is that the reason why, in 2020, the FTC brought 31 
challenges to mergers, which was a two-decade high, but, in 
2021, the year you became Chair, the FTC took only 15 actions 
against mergers and, in 2022, only 17 actions? Is that because 
you're focused too much on rulemaking and all your resources 
are allocated in that direction?
    Ms. Khan. So, there are no real--we have looked--we've 
proposed a rule to update the HSR form in the Bureau of 
Competition, but, aside from that, the vast majority of 
resources are focused on enforcement.
    I think some of those numbers you mentioned are outdated. 
Our team would be happy to provide you with updated numbers. 
Our enforcement is squarely in line with prior years.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back.
    I recognize Mr. Hunt from Texas.
    Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you for being here, ma'am. I really appreciate your 
time. I know it's been kind of a long day. The first question 
for you is, on July 13, 2022, the FTC proposed the motor 
vehicle dealers trade regulation rule. Are you familiar with 
this rule?
    Ms. Khan. Yes.
    Mr. Hunt. OK. Did the FTC conduct a cost-benefit analysis 
for this rule and determine what costs of implementing this 
rule might be? What did the cost-benefit analysis conclude, if 
you can recall?
    Ms. Khan. So, we did have to conduct that analysis, 
pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Notice of 
Proposed Rulemaking lays out some of that preliminary analysis.
    Mr. Hunt. Any idea on the cost?
    Ms. Khan. I'm not recalling off the top.
    Mr. Hunt. OK. I'd like to ask for unanimous consent, sir, 
to enter this into the record. This is a research study that's 
done by the Center for Automotive Research, which conducted a 
full cost-benefit analysis of this rule and determined that the 
rule would impose a cost of $38 billion with a ``b'' over the 
next 10 years.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Without objection.
    Mr. Hunt. Thank you.
    Ms. Khan. This is a study done by some outsiders, you said, 
or this is the FTC analysis?
    Mr. Hunt. No, this is, actually, an outsider, the Center of 
Automotive Research.
    Ms. Khan. I'm not familiar with it. I know we got a lot of 
comments on the rule. So, our teams are looking at those 
closely, and maybe this was one of those.
    Mr. Hunt. So, what we will do is we will send this to you. 
I would implore you to take a look at it. Now that you have a 
copy of it, I would love for you to reconsider that burden and 
that cost that it would actually place on the American people, 
if you don't mind.
    Ms. Khan. Happy to. I will say, generally, the auto rule 
that we've proposed is designed to address junk fees, bait-and-
switch tactics, some of the harms that consumers time and time 
again have been encountering in these contexts.
    We received over 100,000 complaints from consumers over the 
last few years relating to some of these deceptive practices in 
the auto-purchasing context. So, that's what our rule is really 
designed to address.
    Mr. Hunt. OK. Understood. I think this is kind of what our 
goal is, is to make sure that we prevent any undue burden on 
the American people. Obviously, the issue that you just 
addressed and, also, most importantly, just cost, because right 
now we, as a country, are suffering immensely with inflation, 
and we've been saying so. I want to make sure that we do 
protect the American voter here in this country.
    Switching gears, the FTC has made a mandate protecting 
consumers and their privacy. Under that mandate, do you think 
it's appropriate for the FTC to compel a company to collect and 
retain consumer data, including their personal identifiable 
information?
    Ms. Khan. Is there a particular context you're thinking 
about, Congressman--
    Mr. Hunt. There is a particular context, but I was just 
kind of wondering what your overall feel of this issue is. I 
can't, I can't exactly say who asked this question for their, 
for their own anonymity. I was just wondering what your overall 
feel is about including their data that has their personal 
information in it, as the FTC.
    Ms. Khan. Overall, the goal of our data privacy and 
security is to protect the privacy and security of Americans' 
data. What ultimate remedy or relief we're seeking is, 
generally speaking, designed to minimize the data being 
collected. I'm not sure what specific instance you're 
referencing.
    Mr. Hunt. I understand. The last question, do you think 
it's appropriate to suspend the collection of this data in the 
name of protecting consumer data as a whole?
    Ms. Khan. Again, we'd be happy to look at any specific 
matter that you're considering. A key goal of some of our 
recent privacy work has been data minimization to really limit 
what data is being collected in the first instance, because 
we've seen that's the best way to minimize the risk of privacy 
breaches and security breaches.
    Mr. Hunt. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. I 
yield back the rest of my time. Thank you.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields.
    I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Khan, thank you for being here. I know it's been a long 
day. Now, the FTC's mission is to protect the public from 
deceptive and unfair trade practices and from unfair methods of 
competition. Even on your website, the FTC's work to protect 
consumers and promote competition touches the economic life of 
all of us. I'd say the FTC is charged with a very important 
mission and have for a long time.
    A Bloomberg report recently found that 71 attorneys left 
the agency in a two-year period between 2021-2022. This is the 
highest number of departures in 20 years. That being said, it's 
pretty tough, I would imagine, to protect the American consumer 
and promote competition when your staff is leaving.
    As you know, Congress receives Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Surveys, or FEVSes, to inform us on how agencies are 
functioning. In 2020, 87 percent of FTC employees agreed that 
senior leaders maintain high standards of honesty and 
integrity. In two years, that dropped to 53 percent, and also, 
in 2022, to 49 percent.
    Similarly, in 2020, 83 percent of FTC employees agreed that 
they have the highest level of respect for FTC's senior 
leaders. Again, in 2021, that dropped to 49 percent, and in 
2022, to 44 percent.
    In 2020, again, 80 percent of FTC respondents agreed that 
senior leaders generate high levels of motivation and 
commitment in the workforce. Under your leadership, that has 
dropped to 42 percent in 2021 and 40--or 36 percent, 
alarmingly, in 2022.
    So, I think my question, quite frankly, is, why is it so 
unpopular to work at the FTC?
    Ms. Khan. So, we have fantastic career staff who day-in and 
day-out are fighting for the American people and looking to 
protect them from unlawful business practices.
    I take those survey results seriously, and we've been 
engaged in taking a series of steps to make sure that the FTC 
is a great place to work. I've been really thrilled that, over 
the last couple of years, we've been able to onboard hundreds 
of new employees at the FTC.
    Just the other month, we launched a new Office of 
Technology. Within a matter of a week, we got 600 
applications--technologists, these are data scientists, data 
engineers, highly qualified people who want to come work at the 
FTC to make sure that we're able to use their technological 
expertise, as we continue to do our work to protect the 
American public.
    Mr. Fry. Well, Chair, I would imagine, with the high number 
of vacancies that have been as the result of the last two 
years, that you would be hiring more people, in addition to the 
33 percent increase in your budget. So, I would imagine that 
there is a drive to hire people just in general to fill those 
spots.
    I think my concern is the unhappiness of people within the 
agency and why that is. Would you care to comment on that?
    Ms. Khan. Yes, I take that very seriously, and we've 
engaged in a lot of conversations and meetings to understand 
what some of the source of those issues were. We've been able 
to implement a set of steps, including streamlining 
decisionmaking, expanding communications around priorities. We 
clarified what our workplace flexibility policies would be. I'm 
hopeful that each of those steps has contributed.
    Mr. Fry. Yes, and, Chair, please don't take my comments as 
me attacking you or your agency, but it is of concern to me 
when I read that. Of course, my colleagues up here have echoed 
a lot of policy frustrations with your organization and maybe 
you. When I'm reading about the employee satisfaction the FTC 
serves such a vital purpose in our country. It's just really 
alarming to see it go from one of the top-performing agencies 
of employee satisfaction to really the bottom in a two-year 
period. It's just really alarming.
    So, what do you think that you've learned? You've been here 
for two years, and you've seen some tumultuous times. Do you 
think you've learned anything as a result of maybe your 
leadership or leadership around you on how to handle this and 
correct it?
    Ms. Khan. So, as I said, we undertook a set of steps to 
make sure we were appropriately streamlining decisionmaking, 
expanding communications with staff across the agency.
    In terms of learnings, I've had the privilege of seeing 
firsthand just how hard FTC staff are working day-in and day-
out. Oftentimes, they're having to go up against companies that 
are--whose resources really dwarf ours, and there's a clear 
mismatch in resources, but we're still able to go toe-to-toe on 
talent. That just reflects the sheer talent and dedication of 
our staff.
    Mr. Fry. Well, good, and I hope that these issues correct. 
There's a lot--I think Mr. Gaetz talked about an important 
issue about creepy data collection that's going on, and you've 
hit on that all day.
    The mission is important, but you have to correct the ship. 
You have to correct the type of management that you perform, 
and I think that starts with you and it starts with your team. 
Because I don't want to read about toxic environments or people 
feeling like they're not heard or mismanagement at the highest 
levels. There has been a lot of ups and downs with the FTC over 
the last two years, and I'm hopeful that you can correct that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back.
    I yield five minutes to myself. I just wanted to take up a 
little bit where Congressman Biggs and Congressman Johnson were 
speaking, talking about the diversity, equity, inclusion issue 
that Commissioner Slaughter has, evidently, championed.
    Do you believe--and I know it's hard, but if you could just 
give me a yes-or-no answer--do you believe that should be a 
major and significant part of antitrust enforcement? Do you 
believe that's your job?
    Ms. Khan. So, our job is to enforce the antitrust laws, 
which prohibit unfair methods of competition or deals that 
substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. 
We endeavor to do that work to protect everybody--
    Mr. Van Drew. So, what does that have to do with diversity, 
equity, and inclusion?
    Ms. Khan. I'm not really sure. Could you share more about 
what you specific concerns are?
    Mr. Van Drew. Well, Commissioner Slaughter has said--and we 
have quotes--that this needs to be and have a major role in 
antitrust enforcement; that's a very major piece of it; that 
it's part of it. Do you agree with that or not?
    I didn't think--in all honesty, there are agencies who have 
that job and that responsibility; I didn't believe that yours 
did. I was just concerned. Are we going to--as it is, you're 
short of resources. We can't do all the things we want to do to 
protect the consumer. I don't know why we would divert 
resources, time, energy, and people power to actually going 
forward with that.
    Ms. Khan. Yes, look, I won't speak on behalf of my 
colleague. Again, what I think about is the ways in which 
concentration of economic power and monopoly power hurts 
everybody.
    Mr. Van Drew. I understand.
    Ms. Khan. We need to keep that in mind, as we're using 
these tools and making sure we're protecting all parts of the 
American public from these practices.
    Mr. Van Drew. I agree. I'm concerned--and I'm just picking 
up where Congressman Fry left off on the State of morale at the 
FTC since you began your tenure. Examples such as hiring a 
Chief of Staff described as ``frequently creating friction with 
an aggressive managerial style'' or choosing an Associate 
Director for Litigation in the Bureau of Competition with less 
than two years of legal experience before joining your office 
as a high-ranking member. Can you speak on that for just a 
moment?
    Ms. Khan. Yes. I'm really lucky to have a fantastic senior 
leadership--
    Mr. Van Drew. You do have good staff. I'm sorry to 
interrupt you, but you do have a good staff. Some things--let 
me say this, just to maybe clarify this more: On the matter of 
agency morale, the Bureau of Competition, which you're familiar 
with, whose mission is to enforce the Nation's antitrust laws--
one of your top priorities, I believe it is--saw its engagement 
and satisfaction score drop by 33 percent since you began your 
tenure. Do you think that's a result of your leadership style? 
Is it a result of something else? Are there other factors that 
are affecting FTC employees?
    You do have a lot of great people there, but the point is a 
lot of those great people have also expressed that they're not 
happy. Why?
    Ms. Khan. I couldn't agree more that it's important for us 
to understand what some of the sources of those numbers are. As 
we've been looking to do--and I should also note, for the 
Bureau of Competition, in particular, over the last couple of 
years they've been on the front lines of a surge in merger 
filings. I mean, year over year, they were seeing a 70 percent 
increase in the number of filings coming in, while their 
numbers are--
    Mr. Van Drew. I understand that, but they're not happy. We 
have a lot of people that work very hard, but they're happy.
    Ms. Khan. Just to commend them, of course. So, we've been 
looking to understand, again, what more can we be doing to 
organize--
    Mr. Van Drew. So, you're working on this?
    Ms. Khan. Correct.
    Mr. Van Drew. OK. You think it's going to get better?
    Ms. Khan. I'm hopeful.
    Mr. Van Drew. OK. I wanted to talk about unpaid consultants 
for a moment, which the Office of the Inspector General--this 
was not me saying this; the Inspector General said this--
labeled as, quote, ``unprecedented.''
    The Inspector General report from last year said you didn't 
give these consultants clear guidance or limits--I'm not saying 
it; this is not a Republican saying it or a Democrat, or 
anybody else--on their work, and that there was concern that 
these practices may, quote, ``violate policies for Federal 
agencies'' that stipulate that such agencies--these hires are 
not allowed to play an inherently, quote, ``an inherently 
governmental function.''
    Can you tell us how many of these consultants are working 
at the FTC, what they're doing, and how often you meet with 
them?
    Ms. Khan. So, there is Federal authority allowing 
government agencies to make use of some of these consultants, 
especially in areas where we don't have existing expertise--
    Mr. Van Drew. Respectfully, I understand that. We're 
running out of time. Why did the Inspector General sound an 
alarm, though?
    Ms. Khan. The Inspector General's report identified certain 
areas where we could be tightening up our processes and 
procedures to make sure we're mitigating against risk. We 
followed very closely the IG's recommendations and have been 
moving forward to implement those recommendations.
    Mr. Van Drew. OK. I have items for the record. I have two 
articles from the Americans for Tax Reform titled, quote, 
``Lina Khan Has Some Explaining to do,'' as well as Khan 
reveals that she, quote, ``handpicked controversial unpaid 
consultants.''
    Mr. Van Drew. [Presiding.] Thank you for your answers.
    I'm going to yield back.
    With that, I think that will conclude today's hearing. We 
thank our witnesses for appearing before the Committee. We 
thank you for being here.
    Without objection, all Members will have five legislative 
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses 
or additional materials for the record.
    Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 2:54 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

    All materials submitted for the record by Members of the 
Committee on the Judiciary can be found at: https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116199.

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