David Cicilline

It is not hearsay when the President tells the President of Ukraine to investigate his political adversary, is it?

Pieces of legislation passed by the U.S. House

I think it is an obvious point that I hope everyone who is watching this hearing understands this.

It turns the presumption of innocence on its head, and when you look at the number of people who are incarcerated because they simply can't afford to post bail, that means they are in jail because they are poor, period.

One in five individuals who are incarcerated are incarcerated awaiting trial. That ought to shock and alarm everyone in this country.

I want to thank our witnesses. I hope you understand that the passion of this subcommittee and these questions are because these are issues we care deeply about, and we're reflecting the concerns of our constituents on all of these issues…

You can understand why this would be of concern to the public, that we would have traded away the right to question the decisionmaker at Facebook in a piece of litigation that you are trying to determine if they violated a consent decree.

I'm particularly concerned about the FTC's investigative process and whether the FTC makes best efforts to identify the full extent of the violations.

So how about a qualified moratorium, a moratorium unless it was demonstrated that it was procompetitive?

The hubris of the executive team to pursue an acquisition of this size, a proposed $2.1 billion, while under Federal and State antitrust investigations is astonishing.

Your staff has been terrific in providing technical assistance on our drug pricing effort to reduce prescription drug prices.

But do you view that there is, in the consideration of competition and the effectiveness of the market, whether there's competition, that the impact on privacy is a factor?

As we consider ways to protect America's privacy, particularly in light of how these protections may reinforce market power, shouldn't we think about addressing this underlying business model on behavioral advertising?

My question was a simple one. You are seeing in your work that, in fact, user privacy has been harmed as a result of this market consolidation in the digital marketplace.

So I take it from that, you do agree with the last statement that I made, that market consolidation in digital markets is, in fact, coming at the expense of strong user privacy.

The critical challenge now for the committee is to ensure that the Federal Trade Commission fulfills its mission and safeguards these interests.

When the agency is supposed to protect workers, and I believe that that's what you have been trying to do, from the harms of anticompetitive corporate behavior, why expend significant energy and precious resources in filing these briefs…

I'm also concerned that barriers to bringing antitrust cases have grown too high for the average American.

The concentration of power in the digital marketplace is something that should concern every American.

On opening day, we take an oath of office. We take an oath not to a king, not to a President, but to protect and defend the Constitution. It is our solemn duty. In fact, this resolution sets forth the procedures for the next phase of our…

Allowing the current antitrust federal agencies more resources to be able to invest in antitrust labor enforcement, which they have started doing, is probably something that would be helpful in making progress on that front.

I think this is one problem. If antitrust law is saying it's going look at workers and labor markets as well, we can't use consumer--speculative consumer benefits to justify harms to workers.

My opinion based on what I said about vertical restraints, is that vertical restraints should be regulated much more stringently than horizontal restraints, because they often embody top down control by a more powerful firm, which is…

Are there other ways that you think that Congress should think about addressing this issue, whether through legislation or oversight?

This is where antitrust has a role to play in combating monopsony power that suppresses wages today in the U.S. labor market.