Wall Street donors to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign are pleading with her to fire the nation’s top trust-buster at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lina Khan. The donors complain that Khan has held up corporate mergers that they stand ready to profit from.
According to a report from Bloomberg, “deep-pocketed donors” to Harris’s campaign are already making demands should she win the presidency — mainly, firing FTC Chair Lina Khan, who is considered the leading anti-monopolist within the federal government.
“The private conversations about having [Khan] replaced have intensified since public calls for her ouster in July from Barry Diller, chairman of IAC Inc., and LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, who said Khan was ‘waging war on American business,’” the Bloomberg report states.
Indeed, as Breitbart News reported, billionaires Reid Hoffman and Barry Diller have urged Harris to publicly oppose Khan and promise to fire her should she win in November.
Diller’s company, IAC, Inc., is being investigated by the FTC as is a deal between Microsoft and artificial intelligence startup Inflection. Hoffman sits on the Microsoft board and is the co-founder of Inflection.
Wall Street donors to Harris, Bloomberg reports, will continue to lobby Harris on firing Khan up until election day. Harris has yet to take any public or private position on Khan and the larger issue of growing monopoly power in the American economy.
“Two donors close to Harris’ campaign said the argument being presented against Khan is that the FTC’s efforts to hold up mergers are hurting the economy,” Bloomberg reports. “The idea is that if Harris wants to project herself as pro-growth and pro-business — as she and surrogates have sought to do — Khan will need to be replaced, the people said.”
Last month, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), now former President Donald Trump’s running mate, defended Khan against attacks from Wall Street and billionaire donors to Harris.
“I don’t agree with Lina Khan on every issue, to be clear, but I think that she’s been very smart about trying to go after some of these big tech companies that monopolize what we’re allowed to say in our own country,” Vance said.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.