Ajit Pai: The Earnest Hero/Villain of Trump's FCC

In a city driven by the pursuit of power, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who was put in charge of the agency by President Donald Trump in 2017, seems more concerned with how, if at all, he should use his. He believes in what he and others describe as “regulatory humility.” “My own position,” he said, “is that consumers are ultimately better off when the marketplace is unshackled, and when regulators can take targeted action against bad apples in the bunch without presuming that all apples are bad. Or that the apples wouldn't exist but for the fact that the government was taking action.” Pai started his career at the Department of Justice as a trial lawyer, leaving for K Street and Verizon briefly, and then moving to Capitol Hill with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Along the way, the friendly legal dork attracted powerful political patrons such as then-Senator Jeff Sessions, who remembers Pai as the combination of “a brilliant legal mind” and a “wonderful, sunny personality that endeared him to everyone.” Top friends include Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who described Pai as “an all-star," and who recommended that President Barack Obama appoint him to the FCC in 2012. 

Love him or hate him, Pai knows exactly what he is doing. He also tells the public exactly why. “It's no longer the Washington lawyers and lobbyists who can call up a connection downstairs and try to get insights into our non-disclosed orders. Now anybody who has an Internet connection can see what it is we are proposing to do,” Pai says with obvious pride. “Even my harshest critics, I would have to think, would give me some credit, at least, for making the agency more transparent.”