FirstNet Authority Obstructed Audits, Punished Whistleblower, Says Inspector General
The office said the reports resulted in a change of leadership at FirstNet Authority.
WASHINGTON, August 29, 2025 – The Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released two investigation summaries on Thursday saying the office had found senior FirstNet Authority officials worked to obstruct OIG audits and punished an employee for providing information to the office.
The office said it referred its findings on whistleblower retaliation to the Commerce department in January. The other report, on leadership obstructing audits, was referred to the department in April. That case did not result in any criminal prosecution, according to the office.
OIG said FirstNet Authority responded to the office’s findings earlier this month saying that “several individuals involved in the investigation are no longer employed by the Department and that appropriate counseling was provided to those who remain. FirstNet Authority also noted that new leadership is in place.”
FirstNet Authority announced a new executive director and CEO on May 1: Mike Cannon, formerly the agency’s general counsel and a longtime Commerce Department attorney. He succeeded Joe Wassel, who had led FirstNet Authority since March 2023.
FirstNet Authority, housed within Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, manages FirstNet, the nationwide first responder network operated by AT&T. Earlier in August FirstNet said it had 7 million connections in use by 30,000 public safety agencies.
'Officials altered or withheld documents,' wrote OIG
The OIG said three senior officials had complained FirstNet Authority leadership was obstructing the office audits, including by “planning to ‘combat the OIG’ seeking compromising information about the Inspector general” and directing staff to record conversations with OG staff.
“Our investigation revealed that FirstNet Authority officials altered or withheld documents that [Office of Audit and Evaluation] requested, including after-action reports and meeting minutes, impeding the accuracy and timeliness of information needed for OIG audits,” OIG wrote. “We also reviewed internal communications that emphasized a ‘warlike’ relationship toward OIG and referred to OIG as their ‘common enemy.’”
With respect to the whistleblower, OIG said it determined a senior FirstNet Authority official pressured an employee to resign in part because they shared records with OIG auditors.
The FirstNet Authority did not respond to a request for comment. AT&T didn’t comment.
The Federal Communications Commission is interested in letting FirstNet use unassigned spectrum in the 4.9 GigaHertz band, used by local public safety agencies. The FCC is being sued over the issue by a group opposed to the plan, the Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure.
CERCI includes Verizon and T-Mobile, and has said the deal would amount to a multibillion-dollar giveaway to AT&T, which can use excess FirstNet capacity for its commercial network. The group has raised in its lawsuit previous Commerce OIG reports on the FirstNet Authority, which it says showed “poor management.”
The FCC said it was satisfied with NTIA’s response to a report last year that found FirstNet Authority didn’t adequately hold AT&T to contractual device connection milestones. NTIA said it agreed with the OIG’s recommendations for stronger audits and would ensure FirstNet Authority met them.
“Because of this,” the FCC wrote in its October 2024 order beginning the process of allowing FirstNet to access the band, “the OIG Report does not impact our decision to allow FirstNet to integrate the 4.9 GHz band into its [network] at this time.”
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