The reporting on this issue seems really deficient. The federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA) allows independent agencies like to FCC to make regulations only after a defined period of public comments. Those comments become part of the open, public record of any rule-making process.
As a part of the rule-making process, the POTUS is allowed to submit comments to the FCC, just as is any other party — individual, corporate, governmental or whatever. But the POTUS can’t “order” the FCC to do something. And I don’t see how his suggestions could be “secret.”
Net neutrality may be as bad as some people say, or it may turn out basically to be “neutral.” I haven’t studied the issue, so I can’t take an informed position one way or the other. But I sure wish the news stories would do a better job of explaining the procedural issues involved.
It’s the Republican Commissioner on the FCC that has said that the Commission will vote on these rules later this month before the rules are released publicly. http://www.fcc.gov/document/comm-pais-stmt-president-obamas-plan-regulate-internet