Congressman Cohen Slams Republicans on “Bizarre” Hearing on Purported Collusion in Advertising

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today questioned the rationale for a Committee hearing seeking to establish the false claim that advertisers and advertising companies are censuring conservatives in violation of antitrust laws.

In his statement before questioning witnesses, Congressman Cohen said in part:

“This is a rather bizarre hearing but not the first we’ve had in this Committee…This is the second hearing…ostensibly charging specific groups with illegal conduct without a single expert witness to lay out that conduct and how that conduct violates the law. This is the Judiciary Committee. It’s supposed to be about law and violations of law…

“Today we have two witnesses – a large advertiser and a large advertising buyer -- …and we have a talk show host, bitter that corporations don’t want to buy his program. It’s a good thing we have an esteemed antitrust expert with us (called by Democrats) in Professor Waller. He has diligently and politely explained why this theory that there’s some antitrust violation designed to censor conservatives…is bunk…

“Republicans must read the Constitution in a funhouse mirror. It’s very much out of focus, weird shapes…then they can come out of the funhouse and maybe they wake up.”

See the congressman’s statement and questions to witnesses here.

Witnesses at today’s hearing were:

• Ben Shapiro, conservative political commentator; co-founder, The Daily Wire
• Herrish Patel, President, Unilever USA
• Christian Juhl, Global Chief Executive Officer, GroupM
• Spencer Weber Waller, Professor and Director of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, Loyola University School of Law

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