Lyngrid Rawlings was among the thousands of signatories earlier this year who supported a controversial proposal by the Trump administration to make it easier for employers to add private market investments to 401(k) account offerings.

But there was just one problem with Rawlings’ comment: She’s been dead since 2024.

Rawlings’ name was just one of thousands that were apparently purloined in a bizarre mass-signature drive to gin up support for the new rule—a top priority for the private fund industry. The Labor Department, which oversees the proposal, says it collected about 12,000 public comments in support, vs. about 30,000 against it.

Revelations about the scheme, uncovered by Bloomberg reporters, have led to a political uproar and calls for a criminal investigation, throwing into limbo one of the Trump administration’s pet projects to open up alternatives to the mass market of retail investors. “It is imperative to find out whether federal law was violated in this case and, if it was, ensure that those who broke the law are held accountable,” wrote Reps. Bobby Scott and Jamie Raskin, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a letter to the FBI and the Justice Department.

Alternative fund managers have found the Trump administrations (the first and the second) to be reliable allies in the effort to expand the reach of private markets to individuals. Together, they’ve joined forces on multiple fronts to blur longstanding lines separating public and private markets, all while keeping the alternatives industry lightly regulated.

Entering apparently phony comments into the federal register on a large scale is the latest, and perhaps oddest, twist in the private fund industry’s years-long campaign to tap Main Street as a vast new source of capital as its traditional base of institutional money is drying up.