F.C.C. Watchdog Looks Into Changes That Benefited Sinclair

[Gothmog]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by muriel_volestrangler (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Last April, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, led the charge for his agency to approve rules allowing television broadcasters to greatly increase the number of stations they own. A few weeks later, Sinclair Broadcasting announced a blockbuster $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media — a deal those new rules made possible.

By the end of the year, in a previously undisclosed move, the top internal watchdog for the F.C.C. opened an investigation into whether Mr. Pai and his aides had improperly pushed for the rule changes and whether they had timed them to benefit Sinclair, according to Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey and two congressional aides.

“For months I have been trying to get to the bottom of the allegations about Chairman Pai’s relationship with Sinclair Broadcasting,” Mr. Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee that oversees the F.C.C., said in the statement to The New York Times. “I am grateful to the F.C.C.’s inspector general that he has decided to take up this important investigation.”

It was unclear the extent of the inspector general’s investigation or when it might conclude, but the inquiry puts a spotlight on Mr. Pai’s decisions and whether there had been coordination with the company. It may also force him to answer questions that he has so far avoided addressing in public.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/technology/fcc-sinclair-ajit-pai.html?smid=tw-share

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Republicans are such a tightly knit group

there is usually, perhaps even almost always, the opportunity for some type of inside job/quid pro quo/collusion

It is simply the nature of the beast

[Gothmog]

2. This could affect the Sinclair/Tribune merge

From the article set forth in OP

In 2015, the inspector general’s office looked into possible coordination between the Obama administration and the F.C.C. chairman at the time, Tom Wheeler, on the creation of so-called net neutrality rules. The rules prevented broadband providers from blocking or slowing traffic to consumers. The inspector general said its investigation could not find clear improper conduct.

Antitrust experts said this new investigation may complicate the reviews of the Sinclair-Tribune deal by the F.C.C. and the Justice Department. Even if the deal were approved, they said, any conclusions of improper conduct by Mr. Pai could give fuel to critics to challenge the review in courts.

“An investigation could cast a cloud over the whole process,” said Andrew Schwartzman, a senior fellow at Georgetown Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. “For the review, knowledge of an investigation could generate caution and even delay completion of the deal.”

[Fred Sanders]

3. Check Ajit Pai's bank account or his relatives. Corruption is this regimes middle name.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Locking - duplicate thread

of https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141988380 . Please continue discussion there. Thanks.