In a remarkable turn of events during a tense US Senate hearing, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was forced to hastily edit its own official website after its pro-Trump chairman declared the regulator was not an independent agency.
A Startling Reversal During Senate Scrutiny
The political drama unfolded on Wednesday, 17 December 2025, during a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, faced pointed questioning from Democratic senators. The session, already expected to be contentious due to Carr's recent threats against broadcaster ABC, took a sharp turn when the topic of the FCC's independence arose.
Senator Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, directly asked Carr whether the commission was an independent agency. Carr initially attempted to sidestep, referencing a "test for this in the law." However, Luján pressed for a simple yes-or-no answer, brandishing a screenshot from the FCC's own "About Us" page which clearly stated the agency was independent.
"The Website Is Lying" - A Swift Digital Correction
Confronted with his own agency's description, Carr finally stated, "The FCC is not an independent agency." When Senator Luján asked if that meant the FCC website was lying, Carr replied, "Possibly." The chairman argued the FCC was not "formally" independent because its leadership, including himself, could be removed by the sitting president.
Astoundingly, this admission triggered an almost immediate digital revision. Within 25 minutes of Carr's testimony, Axios media reporter Sara Fischer noticed the FCC's website had been scrubbed. The line describing the FCC as "an independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress" was replaced with a simpler statement calling it a "U.S. government agency overseen by Congress," with the word "independent" conspicuously absent.
Contrasting Views and a Haunting Quote from 2018
The hearing highlighted a stark partisan divide within the commission itself. The other Republican commissioner, Olivia Trusty, backed Carr's stance, noting FCC commissioners lack "for-cause removal protections." In contrast, the lone Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, asserted the agency was and should be independent.
The situation grew more awkward when Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, confronted Carr with the chairman's own past words. Kim quoted a statement Carr made to Congress in 2018: "Congress long ago determined that the FCC is an independent expert agency." When asked if that was correct, Carr claimed there had been a "sea change in sort of the law and the approach" since he made that statement.
Throughout the exchange, Carr repeatedly dodged questions about whether he considered Donald Trump his "boss," eventually conceding only that "I can be fired by the president." The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the website edits following the hearing.
