FCC Says IG Requested Hold on Release of Total Call Mobile Order

Last week, an FCC spokesman said only that the two items weren't connected. A commission spokeswoman said Thursday that the FCC inspector general had requested the investigation not be released until April 1. “The timing of the enforcement action was in no way related to the timing of the vote on the program modernization,” the FCC spokeswoman emailed. An FCC official said the Enforcement Bureau circulated the Total Call order Feb. 22. The offices could have voted it at any time, but the item wasn't adopted until the April 7 statutory deadline, the official said. A Pai spokesman disputed the FCC spokeswoman's version of events on the notice of apparent liability. "The Enforcement Bureau explicitly and repeatedly said that nothing in the NAL could be publicly discussed or disclosed until April 1," the Pai spokesman said. "When specifically asked if that meant that if the commission adopted the item before April 1, it would not be publicly released until April 1, our office was told point blank that yes, the FCC would not release the NAL until April 1 even if adopted earlier." With respect to the FCC's acting sooner, "our office specifically asked why the FCC didn’t move forward with the NAL on the 32,000 duplicates that [Universal Service Administrative Co.] had discovered," the Pai spokesman said. "USAC discovered those duplicates in October 2014 and disclosed that finding to the company and FCC the next month. Under our precedent, that would have enabled the FCC to move forward with an NAL of up to $84 million at any time before October 2015. Because the company already knew about this finding, Total Call Mobile 'knew' it was under investigation regarding duplicate fraud." The Pai office asked "repeatedly what could justify not moving forward with this part of the investigation in an NAL before the statute of limitations expired and never received a satisfactory response," the Pai spokesman said.