EXCLUSIVE — The House Oversight Committee has turned its attention to the Federal Trade Commission and is questioning the agency about its relationship with European antitrust regulators.

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan and Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya on Monday inquiring about the agency's recent interactions with Europe. The agency has a long-standing history of cooperating with the European Union, but a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the FTC consulted with European regulators on whether to stop the merger of the medical tech companies Illumina and Grail. These interactions, Comer alleged, were mismanaged and may have been detrimental to U.S. economic interests.

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These exchanges give the Oversight Committee reason to "question whether the FTC is working in secret to achieve its ideological goals," Comer wrote, according to a copy of the letter provided exclusively to the Washington Examiner. Comer's remarks reference Khan's more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement.

Comer requested that the FTC provide all communications with European governmental entities regarding the Digital Markets Act, the EU's stricter set of rules for ensuring competition in the European marketplace.

Comer launched an investigation into the FTC and Khan in June after Republican FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson resigned from her position, leaving the agency in the control of its three remaining Democratic commissioners. The other Republican commissioner, Noah Phillips, stepped down last fall to focus on his family.

Khan has also faced scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) over her approach to antitrust. This includes a focus on her failed attempts to block Meta's acquisition of the virtual reality developer Within and Microsoft's purchase of the game developer Activision Blizzard.

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Khan made a name for herself when she published "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox" in 2017, an academic article arguing in favor of antitrust reforms that would help stop Big Tech companies. A key argument was that the modern antitrust system was unequipped to deal with the growing market power that entities such as Amazon had and required giving the FTC more control.