New Hampshire's attorney general has identified a Texas telecommunications company as the culprit behind phony calls impersonating President Joe Biden urging Democrats not to vote in the state's primary election.
Republican attorney general John Formella held a press conference Tuesday announcing the opening of a criminal investigation after working with the Federal Communications Commission and a private industry group to determine the source of the calls, which apparently used AI technology to impersonate the president, reported NBC News.
“We have never seen something so close to an election before and with such a blatant attempt to mislead voters,” Formella said. “We don’t want this to be the first of many.”
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The calls, which went out to between 5,000 and 25,000 people in the days before the Jan. 23 primary, may violate state election laws against voter suppression, as well as federal telecom statutes, and law enforcement are actively pursing both criminal and civil actions against the companies suspected as the source.
“We are confident this is the source of the calls,” Formella said.
Investigators traced the calls to the Texas-based Life Corporation, which Formella said was owned by Walter Monk, although little information was available online about the company or its listed owner.
Another Texas company, Lingo Telecom, was also involved in the robocalls, Formella said, in addition to other companies he did not name.
The FCC cited Life Corporation and more than a dozen alias corporations in 2023 for making unsolicited robocalls to residential phone customers appearing to come from dating services or offering psychic services, in addition to companies with names similar to major financial firms or credit card processors.
