Top Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Commission wantFCC Chairman Ajit Pai to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election via U.S. broadcasting.

At issue is Sputnik, a digital news/radio service reportedly funded by the Russian government.

Cable channel Russia Today has come under similar scrutiny from the same Democratic legislators, Rep. Frank Pallone (N.J.), ranking member of the Energy & Commerce Committee, Mike Doyle (Pa.), ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, and former subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo (Calif.).

Related: FCC's Pai: Free Speech Is Under Siege

“Recent reports suggest that Sputnik was used as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to influence the 2016 election,” the House members wrote to Pai in a letter dated Monday, Sept. 18. “In Washington, D.C., listeners need only tune their radios to 105.5 FM to hear the Russian government’s effort to influence U.S. policy. Disturbingly, this means the Kremlin’s propaganda messages are being broadcast over a license granted by the FCC.”

They want to know whether Pai is currently investigating whether broadcast licensees are "contravening" the public interest by carrying Russian-backed efforts to influence U.S. elections, and if not, will it do so, and what steps it was authorized to take if the allegations proved true.

An FCC spokesperson had not returned a request for comment at press time.

Faced with reports that his campaign may have collaborated with Russia on the leaks of information about his opponent in the presidential race, Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning to brand NBC and ABC purveyors of "fake news," the latest in a string of such accusations.

"Just watched the totally biased and fake news reports of the so-called Russia story on NBC and ABC. Such dishonesty!," Trump tweeted.

The reports followed the testimony of FBI director James Comey that his agency has for several months been investigating whether there were such contacts, and a story Wednesday night by CNN that cited unnamed "U.S. officials" that the FBI had information "that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign," saying that was, in part, what Comey was referring to.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has said there is "more than circumstantial evidence" of collusion that is "worthy of investigation."

This week FCC chairman Ajit Pai said he did not think the media were the enemy of the American people, as President Trump has alleged, but added that the president appeared to be talking about "fake news."

Related: Trump Brands Media 'Enemy of the American People'

The Urban Dictionary now defines “fake news” as “a  term formerly useful for describing websites consisting entirely of intentionally fabricated news stories, but now used to describe virtually anything that does not mesh with one's own views.”

It is entirely possible that Latinos, with their numbers around 57 million in the U.S., will decide the presidential election. A headline in Tuesday’s New York Times trumpeted, “The Hispanic Voter Surge Was a Myth in 2012. But Not This Time.” News networks -- and those who cater to a Hispanic audience in particular -- are paying intensely close attention to the Latino vote’s impact on Trump-Clinton 2016.

Jose Diaz-Balart (pictured), anchor at Telemundo News, suggests that what the English-language media sees as a recent phenomenon has been a real factor for much longer. Tenacious voter registration campaigns, alongside continued immigration gains, have elevated the Hispanic community to a full-on force in the U.S. electorate. A polarizing candidate such as GOP standard-bearer Donald Trump has given the Hispanic community, itself broad and diverse, a singular focus, say election watchers.

Read more at B&C: