FBI to investigate possible wrongdoing by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

Good news: The Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is report­ed­ly launch­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion, only hours after Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter King fol­lowed sev­er­al senior Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors in ask­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to look into the matter.

In response to requests from mem­bers of Con­gress and at least one news media report, the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion in New York on Thurs­day opened a pre­lim­i­nary inquiry into alle­ga­tions that News Cor­po­ra­tion jour­nal­ists sought to gain access to the phone records of vic­tims of the Sept. 11 attacks, peo­ple briefed on the mat­ter said.

The inves­ti­ga­tion is in its ear­li­est stages, one of the peo­ple said, and its scope was not yet clear. It also was unclear whether the F.B.I. had iden­ti­fied pos­si­ble tar­gets of the inves­ti­ga­tion or pos­si­ble spe­cif­ic crim­i­nal violations.

Mean­while, over in the Unit­ed King­dom, police have arrest­ed anoth­er for­mer News of the World edi­tor, Neil Wal­lis, who was actu­al­ly hired by Scot­land Yard fol­low­ing his tenure at the paper to be a con­sul­tant. (Wal­lis is the ninth per­son to have been arrest­ed as a result of the scan­dal.) Lon­don’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police are now in the uncom­fort­able posi­tion of hav­ing to inves­ti­gate them­selves due to their inabil­i­ty to run a clean force. The police’s hand­ing of the phone hack­ing scan­dal is also to be probed by an offi­cial inquiry led by a respect­ed judge, Lord Jus­tice Leveson.

Also, in an abrupt about-face, Rupert and James Mur­doch have writ­ten to Par­lia­ment (PDF) to con­firm that they will obey a sum­mons to tes­ti­fy before the Cul­ture, Media, and Sport Select Com­mit­tee, chaired by John Whit­ting­dale, who has served as an MP since 1992. Their deci­sion sets up what will be an extreme­ly intense and close­ly watched hear­ing next Tuesday.

Their deputy, Rebekah Brooks, had already agreed to testify.

Each pass­ing day seems to bring a new defeat of sorts for Mur­doch and his media empire. They were forced to shut down the News of the World, they were com­pelled to delay and then drop their bid of BSkyB, and now, they’re agree­ing to be grilled by MPs after ini­tial­ly refus­ing to appear. Not to men­tion being con­tin­u­al­ly embar­rassed by fresh rev­e­la­tions about the uneth­i­cal and crim­i­nal activ­i­ties that were tak­ing place in the offices of their publications.

It is indeed appro­pri­ate that there is now an inves­ti­ga­tion on this side of the Atlantic. We need to know: Were the sorts of activ­i­ties that were going on in the Unit­ed King­dom mim­ic­ked by News Cor­po­ra­tion’s U.S. oper­a­tions? Did Mur­doch’s out­lets try to hack into the voice­mail box­es of Sep­tem­ber 11th vic­tims? Have peo­ple work­ing for Mur­doch been try­ing to get celebri­ty dirt by ille­gal­ly obtain­ing mes­sages that should be the pri­vate prop­er­ty of actors and oth­er pub­lic figures?

We know that the hack­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom was not per­pe­trat­ed by just a cou­ple of guys, as Mur­doch and his exec­u­tives ini­tial­ly claimed. Since we can’t trust them or take them at their word, we need an inves­ti­ga­tion. We need to know if the modus operan­di of the News of the World became the M.O. or even just part of the M.O. at any of Mur­doch’s Amer­i­can outlets.

And, of course, U.S. author­i­ties should be look­ing into whether bribes paid to police offi­cers in the Unit­ed King­dom by News Cor­po­ra­tion sub­sidiaries vio­lat­ed our For­eign Cor­rupt Prac­tices Act (FCPA).

It is time for Rupert Mur­doch and his min­ions to be held account­able for the cor­rup­tion and destruc­tion they’ve caused.