WASHINGTON-House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) asked Attorney General Janet Reno to launch a criminal investigation into the financing and lease arrangements connected with moving the Federal Communications Communication to The Portals and is expected this week to advise FCC Chairman Bill Kennard against relocating the agency’s headquarters until the matter has been fully examined.
The FCC was to begin moving to The Portals in March.
“As chairman of the authorizing subcommittee for the FCC, I am particularly concerned about the role played by several friends and former associates of Vice President Al Gore,” said Tauzin in a frank, one-page letter to Reno.
According to interviews and press accounts, those associates include Franklin L. Haney, a Tennessee developer and Portals investment partner who donated $250,000 to the Democratic Party and is suspected of making a $1 million lump-sum payment to a former Gore aide for The Portals project soon after The Portals lease was signed. That lease is said to be valued at $400 million over 20 years.
The former Gore aide, Peter Knight, was manager of the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign and served as a lobbyist for Haney on the Portals project.
Some in Congress say the $1 million payment has the appearance of a kickback and that The Portals case has parallels to a congressional investigation of Knight’s lobbying activities and Democratic campaign contributions of the Massachusetts firm he represented that won $33 million in Department of Energy contracts during the past four years.
Another key figure is former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who has been portrayed as muting his opposition to The Portals move once Haney and Knight joined forces.
Hundt and others counter that communications lawyers housed near FCC headquarters in the stylish downtown district and the agency’s current landlord want to get around a 1994 court order forcing the General Services Administration, the government’s leasing agent, to put the FCC or another federal agency in The Portals.
Vice President Gore, through his spokesperson, has denied any wrongdoing.
But Tauzin doesn’t sound convinced. “Considering the FCC’s long-standing opposition to the Portals move,” said Tauzin, “these actions are curious, to say the least. What’s more, Mr. Haney has refused to return phone calls placed by House Commerce Committee investigators. What does he have to hide? And what, if any, promises were made to complete this deal?”
Tauzin added that “by remaining silent, Mr. Haney has only fueled speculation that this controversial lease was handled inappropriately. Worse yet … published reports have raised serious questions about possible criminal activity, including illegal campaign contributions, influence peddling and political kickbacks.”
Meanwhile, Congress attached a rider to the FCC’s $186 million budget that directs the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to look into The Portals controversy and report back by the end of January.
