Documents: LightSquared shaping up as the FCC’s Solyndra

daily caller ^ | 2/21/12 | Matthew Boyle

[Nachum]

Documents and copies of communications obtained by The Daily Caller indicate that the Federal Communications Commission propped up broadband company LightSquared with favorable regulatory decisions and other special treatment, while driving its competition out of business.

In August 2008, Wall Street hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, owned by longtime Democratic political donor Philip Falcone, sought to buy a majority stake in the satellite company SkyTerra — the company that would later become LightSquared. On June 27 of that year, just before Falcone’s Harbinger Capital sought FCC approval for that purchase, Falcone donated $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But on Sept. 3, 2008, $20,000 of that donation was returned for an unknown reason.

The donation was unusual for Falcone: He had only donated to Democrats in and around New York City over the past decade, and he had a long record of donating to Republicans, including to George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns in 1999 and 2004. But Falcone’s DSCC contribution was the first in what would become a pattern of major Democratic donations in the coming months and years.

Before Barack Obama became president, he was personally an investor in SkyTerra. Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners donated $50,000 to Obama’s inaugural committee on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. At the time, Falcone was still looking for the FCC’s sign-off on his hedge fund’s desire to purchase a majority stake in SkyTerra. The George W. Bush administration had failed to green-light the deal.

According to White House visitor logs, Obama’s new FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, a classmate of the president’s from Harvard Law School, met with White House Personnel Director Don Gips on Feb. 18, 2009. Gips’ personal financial disclosure forms show he had between $250,000 and $500,000 of his personal

[HiTech RedNeck]

An audacious plan to furnish internet service to the whole bloomin’ country, but at the cost of driving all existing GPS haywire. I thought its plan had finally been kiboshed for that reason.

[biggredd1]

If the daily and caller keep this investigative reporting up, they will get an award and be the next woodhead and breinstein.

[ptsal]

bribery....seems to be a word that will become frequently used in the history of Zero and his minions...

[lump in the melting pot]

Journalism awards only exist for exposing (or if necessary, fabricating) Republican malfeasance. All this will be conspicuously ignored by the msm.

[SunkenCiv]

CNet has a 30 minute streaming vid about the bandwidth waiver, and the rest of the details. I started watching it this morning, then had to get up and get going for another lovely workday.

Thanks Nachum.

[pabianice]

There's a lot of reporting going on about this on the iHub investors' board for Calypso Wireless, a company put into receivership by incompetent, allegedly dishonest management and now up for auction as it reportedly owns a very valuable key telecomm patent. Makes fascinating reading.

[Nachum]

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the link.

[pabianice]

Seems to qualify as White House racketeering, doesn't it? The whole LightSquared saga is fascinating if only in the fact that The White House was willing to endanger the US' GPS system for the personal profit of the president's cronies. Oh, yes; don't overlook the full coverage in The Boston Globe.