House Commerce Democrats Seek Further OSC Probe of FCC GOP Members' CPAC Involvement
House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said Monday the U.S. Office of Special Counsel should investigate all three Republican FCC commissioners’ involvement in the American Conservative Union's February Conservative…
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Political Action Conference. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Mike O’Rielly jointly appeared on a CPAC panel, with O’Rielly and Pai getting criticism from government ethics groups and Capitol Hill Democrats (see 1802230037, 1802270035 and 1803260040). The House Commerce Democrats’ request follows OSC finding last week that O’Rielly’s comments at CPAC advocating for the re-election of President Donald Trump violated the Hatch Act, which restricts government officials' partisan political activity (see 1805010083). On the advice of FCC lawyers (see 1803020033), Pai turned down a rifle associated with the National Rifle Association's Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award, which was announced at CPAC for his role in and the hostile fallout from rollback of 2015 net neutrality rules. All three GOP commissioners “have also refused to cooperate with Congressional oversight into their promotion of and participation in CPAC,” Doyle and Pallone wrote OSC Special Counsel Henry Kerner: “Our inquiry” asked the commissioners to “separately answer straightforward questions about their participation in CPAC and to provide supporting documentation. We specifically asked for separate responses to reflect the individual facts of each case.” FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson instead wrote Doyle and Pallone on the commissioners’ behalf to say they didn't violate the agency’s ethics rules (see 1804230023). Johnson’s response is “misleading and incomplete, ultimately raising more questions than it answers,” the Democratic lawmakers said: Johnson’s argument that the commissioners “were not required to abide by the Hatch Act by participating” in the CPAC conference “is simply not true.” It’s “misleading” to say the commissioners’ appearance was “not ethically questionable” given O’Rielly’s comments about a Trump re-election, which runs “counter to [Johnson’s] overly broad claim that nothing about the event raised ethical questions,” the lawmakers said. “The FCC’s career ethics officials determined that it was permissible” for the GOP commissioners to speak at CPAC, a spokeswoman emailed. “Indeed, Cabinet members also spoke at CPAC, and the Democrats’ letter contains no explanation for why the Commissioners’ participation should be treated any differently. Sadly, we are left to conclude that the Democrats are simply trying to stop FCC Commissioners from speaking to right-of-center organizations while they have no problem with Commissioners speaking to left-of-center groups,” she said.