President Trump may have found his new nominees for the FCC

President Donald Trump could soon fill the two open slots at the Federal Communications Commission, by tapping Brendan Carr, currently the general counsel to current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat who previously served at the agency.

At the moment, those two seasoned telecommunication policy experts are seen as the front-runners to fill the remaining seats at the five-member FCC, apparently, though President Trump has not yet formally nominated anyone. If elevated to commissioner, Carr could become a major, new legal ally to his soon-to-be-former boss. Apparently, Chairman Pai may have actually recommended Carr, who joined Pai’s staff in 2014, for the open Republican job at the FCC. Politically, though, Carr could face criticism from some Democrats and left-leaning consumer groups because of his business background. Before arriving at the FCC as an attorney in 2012, he worked as a lawyer at the DC law firm Wiley Rein and represented telecommunication companies like AT&T, Verizon and two of their main trade associations, USTelecom and the wireless-focused lobbying group, CTIA. Similar ties to the telecom industry previously haunted Pai, who represented Verizon at a DC law firm before he joined the commission.