A former Trump administration official removed an article from the National Review after it appears she did not disclose her apparent financial interest.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth served during Trump’s first term as the deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation (DOT). While serving for the administration, she oversaw a 2021 DOT report evaluating GPS backups and complementary Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technologies. The study tested eleven different PNT systems across fourteen metrics and delivered a clear verdict: “All TRL-qualified vendors demonstrated some PNT performance of value, but only one vendor (NextNav) demonstrated PNT performance in all applicable use case scenarios.”
Furchtgott-Roth at the time praised the findings, stating, “The results of the thorough scientific research conducted by this demonstration effort indicate that there are suitable, mature, and commercially available technologies to back up or to complement the timing services provided by GPS.”
This work was in furtherance of what President Donald Trump viewed as vital to the national and economic security of the United States.
In 2020, Trump stated in an executive order, “Because of the widespread adoption of PNT services, the disruption or manipulation of these services has the potential to adversely affect the national and economic security of the United States. To strengthen national resilience, the Federal Government must foster the responsible use of PNT services by critical infrastructure owners and operators.”
Now, she serves on the advisory board of Tern AI, a company in the GPS backup space and is singing a proverbially different tune.
On April 28, National Review ran an op-ed written by Furchtgott-Roth. She attacked NextNav’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) petition to provide a complement and backup to GPS by reconfiguring and modernizing its licenses in the 900 MHz spectrum. The author portrayed this action as a United Arab Emirates (UAE) giveaway via the American-based investment firm Fortress Investment Group, claiming it would lead to massive disruptions to American consumers, and downplayed the need for new spectrum allocation despite the vulnerability she once highlighted at DOT.
Tern AI last October petitioned the FCC not to approve NextNav’s proposal.
In her National Review article, Furchtgott-Roth cites “tests” from Plum Consulting and Neology to back up her claims about “disrupting or displacing” other unlicensed devices on that spectrum band. However, she did not disclose that these tests were funded by clients of her husband, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, the former FCC commissioner and now consultant.
This includes:
- A February 2026 report that was “partially underwritten by the RAIN Alliance.”
- An April 2025 report about NextNav’s proposal was “partially underwritten by support from the E-ZPass Group, the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association, and Neology, Inc. The opinions expressed in this report, and any errors, are those of the author alone.”
Her op-ed was pulled amid the backlash, with the article’s link stating that it was removed at the request of the author.
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