9/11 hacking claims urge probe on tabloid

Rep. Peter King wants the FBI to investigate whether journalists at Rupert Murdoch's disgraced and defunct News of the World tried to bribe a police officer to obtain phone records of 9/11 victims.

"It is revolting to imagine that members of the media would seek to compromise the integrity of a public official for financial gain in the pursuit of yellow journalism," King (R-Seaford) wrote in a letter he faxed and mailed Wednesday to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sent letters with concerns similar to King's to Attorney General Eric Holder, according to cnn.com. Their letters request a probe into whether Murdoch's company, News Corp., violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In the United States, News Corp. publishes The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal and operates Dow Jones & Co., HarperCollins Publishers, Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel and related channels, 20th Century Fox and other properties.

King was reacting to reports in the British press and repeated by U.S. media that the News of the World approached a police officer trying to gain access to information about victims' calls in the days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, plane hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which killed about 3,000 people.

The development comes on the heels of the shutter last Sunday of the weekly London tabloid amid allegations -- and a criminal investigation -- that its journalists routinely hacked into the voice-mail accounts of newsmakers.

King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, advised Mueller that if the allegations are true, they could warrant felony charges.

"It's a disgrace," King said Wednesday. "It's wrong to hack into anyone's phone, but especially at a time of the worst national disaster in the history of our country."