WASHINGTON, July 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. attorney general will meet with Sept. 11, 2001, families over allegations Rupert Murdoch reporters tried to hack victims' cellphones, officials said.
"We are hoping the allegations of hacking prove to be untrue, but we want a thorough investigation to determine what happened," lawyer Norman Siegel, representing 20 families who lost relatives in the terrorist attacks, told Britain's The Guardian.
The meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder is to take place Aug. 24, Siegel said. The Justice Department, which Holder runs, confirmed the appointment.
Holder's decision to hold the meeting indicates how seriously the issue is being taken, The Guardian said.
A half dozen U.S. lawmakers from both houses of Congress urged the Justice Department two weeks ago to investigate possible U.S. and British misconduct by Murdoch's News Corp. as the company's British hacking scandal mushroomed.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., asked on June 13 for the FBI to investigate whether News of the World reporters tried to tap Sept. 11 victims' cellphones or get unauthorized access to their voicemails or phone records.
The allegation was first reported in Britain's Daily Mirror July 11. The newspaper said the journalists approached a former New York City police officer working as a private detective and asked him to do the hacking, which he declined to do.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., asked for a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees U.S. stock exchanges, after news reports said Murdoch journalists "paid London police officers for information, including private telephone information, about the British royal family and other individuals for use in newspaper articles."
Because News Corp. is a U.S. company, such payments may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids payments to foreign officials, Lautenberg said.
Separately, two former News of the World senior executives in London were expected to be called back to Parliament after they contradicted part of last week's parliamentary testimony by Murdoch son James Murdoch, head of the News Corp. division that oversees the company's British newspapers.
Colin Myler, News of the World editor when it closed July 10, and Tom Crone, the paper's former head of legal affairs, said they expressly told James Murdoch of an e-mail that made clear the phone-hacking scandal was not limited to one "rogue reporter," contradicting what Murdoch told Parliament last week.
A News Corp. statement said the younger Murdoch "stands by his testimony" that the e-mail was concealed from him.
An official told The Independent newspaper the committee would probably recall Myler and Crone to testify but didn't say when.
In addition, British officials began investigating at least three "unusual" private military briefings Defense Secretary Liam Fox and other defense officials gave to Rupert and James Murdoch in the past year.
The meetings took place in August 2010 and in March and June of this year, Defense officials acknowledged.
A Defense Ministry spokesman refused to offer details, but it was thought issues discussed included Afghanistan and Britain's 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review, which looked into defense budget cuts, The Independent reported.
The ministry also declined to say who asked for the briefings, the newspaper said.
