JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, Angela Campbell, as I understand it, this was running into—this had started around ’97, was running into late ’99, and there was a deadline for the end of the year of ’99 for a deal to be reached or the whole thing would fall through. And that’s when suddenly Senator McCain sent some letters to the FCC, basically pressuring them to make a decision. Could you talk about that?
ANGELA CAMPBELL: That’s right. Well, there had been—it was very controversial at the FCC, and I think they were really having trouble approving it, because they had actually asked—the main obstacle was that Cornerstone wasn’t, in our view, qualified to be a noncommercial licensee, because their programming wasn’t educational, it wasn’t noncommercial, and they didn’t broadly serve the community. But so, we didn’t find this out until December 15th.
The day that the commission actually approved the deal, we found out that Senator McCain had send two letters, one in November and one in December, urging the FCC—the first one urged the FCC to act on or before December 15th, which was when the FCC was going to hold their public meeting. The second letter, which was in early December, said that—the agenda for that meeting had come out, and he didn’t see that the FCC was planning to vote on it on that date, and so he wanted to know whether the commissioners were voting on it through another process, which doesn’t involve putting it on the public agenda. And he asked each commissioner to write to him by the close of business on December 14th whether they had voted the item and, if not, why they had not voted the item. And this was highly unusual for a chairman of the committee to ask that specifically to each commissioner, whether they had voted. And that’s why the chairman, Kennard, in his response raised concerns about it. And another commissioner, Commissioner Gloria Tristani, actually said she thought it was improper, and she was not going to report to the senator, you know, whether she had voted or not.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And why was it improper? What is this issue of the ex parte communications? Could you explain that?
ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes. Well, just like in a—this is like a court, in that the FCC is the judge, and just as one side in a dispute can’t go and talk to the judge privately, the parties in a dispute before the commission cannot go and talk to the commissioners or the commission staff privately, nor can they send letters or other documents without sending them to the other side. And so, we had actually had a number of letters that we had solicited from congresspeople that the FCC actually rejected, because they said they hadn’t been served on the other side. And then we went back and made sure that they got copies of those letters.
We were never sent a copy of Senator McCain’s letters by him, did not find out about them until December 15th, the day of the vote, when someone from the FCC’s general counsel’s office faxed copies over to me. So the FCC rules explicitly prohibit communications that go to the merits or communications that go to urging the FCC to act by a specific date. So this was a clear violation of the FCC’s rules. And on December 20th, we actually filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel, alleging that he had violated the rules, and we asked for them to act on it right away. They did not. However, eventually, in August of 2000, they did rule that the senator had violated the rules.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, you’re also looking into this. I wanted to talk more about these letters that Angela Campbell is talking about, these two letters from Senator McCain to the FCC, the pressure he was putting on these FCC members and how unusual these letters were.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I think the key thing is not only that he apparently violated the regulations of the FCC, but also he’s the chair of the committee that oversees the FCC. So he’s, in essence—he controls their budget, their policies and to what degree—because, obviously, every single commissioner did respond in a letter to him by the deadline that he gave them, didn’t they, Angela?
ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, they all responded. And you’re absolutely right, as the chairman of that committee, he has oversight responsibility. He controls the budget of the FCC, and he’s the person who really controls the legislation, you know, which determines what the FCC can and cannot do.
AMY GOODMAN: Angela Campbell, did any of these commissioners outright say this is improper to be getting this letter from you and being forced to respond to it?
ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, Commissioner Tristani did say that in her letter.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve got the letters right there—
ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, I have it here.
AMY GOODMAN: —Angela Campbell, director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown. Yes?
ANGELA CAMPBELL: She says, “In that letter, you requested that each commissioner advise you in writing by the close of business today whether we have acted upon these applications. Respectfully, I cannot comply with your request, in order to preserve the integrity of our processes. It is my practice not to publicly disclose whether I have voted or when I will be voting on items in restricted proceedings prior to their adoption by the full commission.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/22/behind_the_john_mccain_lobbying_scandal
