President Donald Trump’s top broadcast regulator ordered an investigation, CNN reported, after a Republican senator called an ABC News story about venture capitalist Donald Trump Jr. a “hit job.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr directed his agency to open the probe after receiving the senator’s letter, an FCC source told CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, who posted the news on X on Monday.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) posted that letter on Saturday, urging Carr to open a formal investigation into the network over its since-corrected report on investments tied to the president’s sons.
“I’m calling for an investigation into ABC’s political hit job on Anduril [and] the Trump family,” Moreno wrote alongside the letter.
ABC’s original story, published Oct. 7 under the headline “Trump sons’ investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election,” said defense companies backed by the president’s sons had won more than $6 billion in government contracts.
Moreno’s letter singled out the story’s claim that 1789 Capital, a venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, “claimed a major stake” in defense contractor Anduril Industries from “a $2.5 billion investment.”
“That was a lie,” Moreno wrote.
ABC deleted the original story the night it was published, after 1789 Capital spokesperson Alexa Henning pressed for a retraction and warned that the firm’s lawyers would get involved, the media newsletter Status reported.
Two days later, on Friday, the network republished a revised version under a new headline with an editor’s note acknowledging “errors in the description of certain company investments, government contracts and event chronologies.”
Moreno wrote that the real investment was about $50 million, and ABC’s corrected story matches that smaller figure. According to the revised version, 1789 Capital put $50 million into a $2.5 billion funding round, a “relatively small stake” in a company valued at more than $60 billion.
A 1789 Capital spokesperson also told ABC that Donald Trump Jr. is not on the three-person committee that makes the fund’s investment decisions.
ABC declined to explain the deletion to Status. Several reporters, citing sources, said the story had been “published prematurely,” but Henning said ABC senior coordinating producer Justin Fishel defended the reporting before pulling it.
“That narrative of incomplete reporting didn’t match up with the defense the editor gave me,” Henning told Status.
“ABC News operates under broadcast licenses issued by the FCC. Those licenses are a privilege, not a right,” Moreno argued in his letter to Carr.
The new probe adds to a string of actions Carr’s agency has taken against ABC, including a warning last year after late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Scripps News reported.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on a conservative podcast at the time.
In April, the FCC ordered all eight ABC-owned stations to seek license renewal years before their licenses expire, a rare move, The Associated Press noted.
Disney, ABC’s parent company, is suing to stop the review, calling it part of a campaign against outlets critical of the president, while the FCC says it stems from a probe into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“What is it that made this so different that you needed to call for an early license renewal?” U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan asked a Justice Department lawyer at a hearing in the case last week, according to The Washington Post’s editorial board.
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