Sen Cruz Letter to Department of Defense on Spectrum Auctions

On March 25, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to request that the Department of Defense turn over any Biden-era documents referring to the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction authority. In the letter, Sen Cruz details allegations that Biden-era DOD officials pressured defense contractors to lobby against reauthorizing auction authority. He wrote, “Specifically, the Committee has been made aware that multiple Pentagon officials and career staff during the Biden administration engaged directly with members of the United States defense industrial base and encouraged, and potentially pressured, them to lobby the Congress in opposition to legislation related to reauthorizing the Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction authority. This kind of jawboning is corrosive to the trust between elected lawmakers and Pentagon officials and is precisely why Congress outlawed direct lobbying by executive branch agencies in the first place."