House Democrats are calling on the Justice Department to expand any planned investigation into the hundreds of fake comments that appeared on the FCC’s net neutrality rule to rulemakings from all agencies.
In a letter Wednesday, Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray to expand the previous request it received to investigate the potentially illegal submission of fake comments.
In June, Pallone asked Sessions and then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to look into media reports that fake comments using stolen identities had been posted on Federal Communication Commission’s controversial internet rule.
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In December, a group of 11 Democratic House members a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting an investigation of fake comments on the net neutrality rule. The GAO has agreed to investigate the matter.
Citing a Wall Street Journal investigation, lawmakers said it has come to their attention that other regulatory agencies are facing a scourge of fake comments as well.
“The practice of manipulating agency actions by flooding rulemaking dockets with fake comments is far more widespread than it appeared when you were initially asked to investigate,” they wrote.
“Some Americans’ voices are being co-opted in what appears to be a systemic attempt to corrupt federal policy-making.”
The House Democrats urged Sessions and Wray to use their “the full investigative powers of the FBI and DOJ to promptly uncover who is behind this conduct and prosecute the parties under applicable federal law.”