In a scathing report released Tuesday, congressional investigators outlined a pattern of mismanagement, dysfunction and abuse of capability at the Federal Communications Commission under the agency’s Republican chairman, Kevin Martin.

The report — the conclusion of a nearly yearlong, bipartisan analysis by the House Energy and Commerce Committee — accuses Martin of manipulating goods and suppressing knowledge to influence telecommunications policy debates at the agency and on Capitol Hill.

The report plus charges that the commission has become politicized, folded to carry out some critical responsibilities under Martin’s leadership, and blames him for undermining an open and transparent regulatory process.

Martin additionally is accused of micromanaging commission affairs, demoting agency staffers who did not agree with him and withholding info from his fellow commissioners. “Chairman Martin’s heavy-handed, opaque, and non-collegial management style has created distrust, suspicion and turmoil among the five current commissioners,” the report says.

Martin’s legacy at the FCC will be “a blueprint of what not to do,” said Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who chairs the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

“The findings propose that, in recent years, the FCC has operated in a dysfunctional manner and commission business has suffered as a outcome,” said Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who will be relinquishing the reins of the panel to California Democrat Henry Waxman next year.

Robert Kenny, a spokesman for Martin, said the committee “did not find or conclude that there were any violations of rules, laws or procedures.” Martin is widely expected to leave the commission after the White House changes hands.

Among the findings of the 110-page report:

- Martin manipulated the findings of an FCC inquiry into the potential consumer benefits of requiring cable companies to sell channels on an individual — or “a la carte” — basis. The House analysis concludes that Martin undermined the integrity of the…

[Source] dhiram