Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of “misleading the public” after the state denied wrongdoing in a federal investigation that found millions in taxpayer dollars were paid out for phone lines tied to dead people.
California obtained millions in federal funds to cover phone and internet service for 94,000 dead people, a new report from the FCC revealed.
“For one, California’s response says that people simply passed away after they were enrolled. But the IG’s advisory specifically identified the tens of thousands of people that were enrolled after they had already died,” Carr wrote in a post on X.
Carr’s comments came after Newsom posted “The facts!” from the California Public Utilities Commission, which said people sometimes die while enrolled in the federal Lifeline program and cited the FCC report as showing most deaths occurred after enrollment.
Carr said that response only raised more questions.
“California says that ‘any improper payments largely reflect lag time between a death and account closure,’” he wrote.
“Normal lag time does not account for all of that.”
California took in $3.8 million in federal funds between 2020 and 2025 through the federal Lifeline program, which spends nearly $1 billion annually to subsidize phone and internet service for low-income Americans, according to the FCC’s inspector general.
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