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The FCC and its commissioners, however, declined to comment on

Jan. 27, 2019 by Catherine Pope

The FCC and its commissioners, however, declined to comment on the FBI's investigation, instead referring BuzzFeed News to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The FCC's attorney, John K. Farr, told BuzzFeed News that the investigation began after a BuzzFeed News story on a meeting in 2011 between the FCC's chairman, Ajit Pai, and the chief technology officer, Jessica Rosenworcel, about net neutrality.

"I'm not sure if we had any sort of information on that meeting prior," Farr said. "It seems like she got her information on it from a Google search."

Budgetary emails have also been released showing that the FCC is not fully aware of any money that was earmarked for the department to monitor the comment section. The documents also show that the FCC has been slow to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests from the public, including in response to requests from the American Civil Liberties Union.

FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski has denied that the agency has been slow to respond to requests for information, saying that it is "not in the public interest" to reveal the names of public officials.

"The FCC is conducting a thorough investigation. We have not received any of the information that we believe appears to indicate that any of these individuals took part in any of these comments," the commissioner said in an interview. "We don't know who was doing the posting of these comments, and we are not conducting any legal proceedings."

The Justice Department has said that it is not investigating the comments made by Pai's predecessor, Ajit Pai, who was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and that the agency is looking into whether the comments were made by the FCC's director, Ajit Pai.

The Justice Department has argued that the privacy of the comments would not be violated, though the FTC has also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the FCC on the basis that it is a public utility and not a private agency. The FCC's motion for a preliminary injunction also requires that the government provide the FCC with a full accounting of the comments made by Pai.

The FCC has said that it will not give the Justice Department information about comments made by its employees about the rules, even though the agency has denied the request. Pai told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he never used a private computer as a source of information on the FCC's comment section, and that he did not share sensitive information on the FCC with the Justice Department. The FCC also declined to return a BuzzFeed News request