Both Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon separately filed motions with the FTC requesting that Khan be recused from any decision related to their companies. She did not.

“Why did you not do that?” Karl pressed.

“The ethics laws primarily require recusal when you have some kind of conflict of interest,” she said, like having stock in a company or a close family member who works for a company.

“But not a clear bias?” Karl pushed back. “I mean, you obviously had an opinion about Amazon before you took this job.”

“I had done academic work. A lot of people that have the fortune of being appointed to these jobs come in through having done policy work,” Khan said. “We’re absolutely focused on enforcing the law without fear or favor. Well, we also don’t want to kind of indulge, you know, requests that are not serious and that are being made in a frivolous way if there’s no real conflict of interest.”