Congress to probe political forgery

WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- A U.S. House committee will investigate the forgery of a letter to a member of Congress purporting to be from an advocacy group, the committee chairman said.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. -- chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming -- said Friday his panel would look into a letter sent by an employee of the Bonner & Associates political consulting firm to Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va.

The letter, which was written on letterhead of a Charlottesville, Va., Latino organization Creciendo Juntos urged Perriello to make changes in greenhouse gas legislation, The Washington Post reported.

Bonner Associates founder Jack Bonner told the Post in an e-mail the company has fired a temporary employee after discovering the employee wrote the forged letter "contrary to our policies."

A spokeswoman for Perriello told the newspaper his office received five letters employing similar language purporting to be from the NAACP Charlottesville, Va., branch -- but none of the names signed on the letters matched actual members of the branch.