The Trump administration official running the parent agency of the Voice of America defended her efforts to shut it down at a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, at one point insisting — without evidence — that the Chinese Communist Party has more influence than American values over the federally funded network's news coverage.
"Hopefully, we can root out the Russian, Chinese, Iranian propaganda that has been prevalent on our airwaves at VOA, and we're going to work to do that," U.S. Agency for Global Media senior adviser, Kari Lake, told members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. "Some say it's the Voice of anti-America."
Asked about foreign journalists working for the Voice of America and other U.S-funded networks who face peril — several reporters are currently imprisoned by authoritarian regimes — Lake suggested that was a problem for the networks, not the federal government.
"The safety and security of American journalists is important ... and I don't think they've done enough to protect them," Lake said. "The question is: Why aren't we hiring more Americans?"
"That's sort of like blaming the group that's advocating for these people," Massachusetts Democrat Bill Keating shot back. "What are they doing? I'll tell you what they're doing - they've simply asked for a meeting with you to discuss this issue!"
Network chiefs have said they have been unable to get Lake to meet with them to hear out their concerns. Lake oversees their federal parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for President Trump, and she has served as an outspoken advocate for his positions on a series of wide-ranging issues.
Foreign journalists are typically hired because they know other languages and cultures in addition to having skills as broadcasters and reporters, according to public accounts from past Voice of America officials who have served under presidents of both parties. The U.S. Agency for Global Media must try to hire U.S. journalists with such knowledge first, but it often proves hard to do so, they say.
Michael Abramowitz, currently on indefinite leave as Voice of America's director, called her claims of Chinese influence "ludicrous" and unfounded. He said the Chinese authorities hate Voice of America and have no influence over the network.
"VOA has reported extensively and critically — across multiple languages — on the [Chinese government's] activities both within China and around the world," Abramowitz said in a statement shared with NPR. "Congress should ask Ms. Lake to provide proof for the mystifying allegations that were made at the hearings." Abramowitz is among the agency staffers currently suing Lake and the agency.
Many in the foreign policy establishment and journalism hail Voice of America's importance, and not simply for broadcasting to countries that were ruled by the Nazis or part of the Soviet Union. In the current moment, Lake has sought alternately to dismantle it or strip it of editorial independence enshrined in law. She put nearly the entire Voice of America workforce on leave earlier this spring, firing hundreds of contractors. On Friday, she sent termination notices to 85% of the permanent employees.
Lake also sought to revoke Congressionally mandated grants to the other federally funded networks, which include the nonprofits Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. After adverse rulings in the courts, she has since agreed to comply with delivering the promised funds, but they have been notably slow in coming.
Lake has relished conflict over the matter and finds herself at the center of the fray twice this week: with the Congressional hearing Wednesday on the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and in court hearings over her leadership of it.
Suspicions of foreign workers
The twin proceedings represent the polar extremes of official Washington's take on the Voice of America. At Wednesday's House hearing, Lake broadly accused the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the Voice of America of security so lax that they had been infiltrated by foreign spies.
The hearing, arranged by Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, a Trump ally, took inspiration from claims that improper vetting caused security breaches in the hiring of foreign journalists to report for the networks funded by the agency.
Lake claimed that foreigners were abusing a visa system set up to allow journalists from abroad to work at the Voice of America's foreign-language news services for several years. She also slammed the firewall enshrined in U.S. law that protects the newsroom from direct editorial influence or pressure by federal lawmakers.
Voice of America staffers — including some of those who are currently suing her — rebutted some of her claims even before the hearing started and continued to do so during it. For example, security concerns had been identified under President Barack Obama and during Trump's first term; remedies were taken under President Joe Biden.
Lake's arguments echoed those of Trump's pick five years ago as U.S Agency for Global Media chief, Michael Pack, who cited the same security concerns. Pack tried to fire holders of the same specialized J-1 visas in 2020, but internal documents released subsequently showed they were driven by an America First outlook, rather than any foreign infiltration.
"USAGM must prioritize employment for American citizens," Pack's chief of staff wrote at the time. "When employers trade American jobs for temporary foreign labor, it reduces opportunities for U.S. workers."
An inspector general's report exonerated six agency executives suspended by Pack in 2020 over related allegations of security lapses.
At the hearing, lawmakers split along fairly conventional party lines: no Republicans criticized Trump's executive order that called for the agency and the networks it funds to be boiled down only to the specific operations that Congress explicitly specified, such as the Persian language service. Many GOP lawmakers also affirmed Lake's claims of waste and liberal bias.
Even so, several Democrats seemed open to reconsidering whether the U.S. Agency for Global Media was the best federal parent for the networks; Lake has advocated it be eliminated and that any surviving services be put under the State Department. And Democrats invited Lake to consult further with Congress over which technologies would be best to distribute the services in the age of livestreaming.
No Democrats, however, signed onto her call to replace the networks' hundreds of journalists with a reliance on posts on Elon Musk's social media platform X or podcasts like that of Joe Rogan, as Lake suggested.
Several Republicans on the committee joined Democrats in highlighting the importance of Voice of America's work in China, Iran, Myanmar, Armenia and elsewhere. And Democrats dressed down Lake for taking an absolutist approach in eviscerating the networks without careful study first. Lake endorsed Trump's push to have the agency eliminated in the next fiscal year's budget.
Also on Wednesday, Senate appropriators held a hearing about broader clawbacks of funds allocated by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, still the senior Republican senator from Kentucky, affirmed the importance of the sort of American "soft power" that the networks were established to promote, although he did not refer to them by name. Soft power, he said, was much less expensive than going to war.
Indeed, after the Israeli and U.S. bombing raids on Iran, Lake called some employees of Voice of America's Persian and Dari-language networks back to work, albeit without rescinding termination notices. Two Voice of America staffers say that Iranian relatives of some Persian-language journalists have been threatened by authorities. NPR agreed to grant them anonymity given the fear of retribution.
Judge weighs lawsuits over Lake's moves
On Monday, U.S. Senior District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered federal lawyers for the agency and Lake to explain by Friday how it is complying with his order to keep Voice of America alive.
"What would be the purpose of Voice of America if there was no voice?" Lamberth asked, according to the Associated Press. The larger case is caught up in the appellate courts, where Lake and the government won a reprieve from much of his order that she freeze her actions to dismantle the services.
Lake said she had been paying the nonprofit networks in a timely way — an assertion they dispute. The Middle East Broadcasting Networks have all but shut down; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia have engaged in mass furloughs as they seek to survive.
While Voice of America officials acknowledge some missteps over time, as occurs at all news outlets, it has historically sought to promote American democratic values by offering coverage of pluralistic political debate inside the U.S., featuring criticism of U.S. government policy along with official statements.
In a series of posts, former Voice of America acting director Elez Biberaj wrote that Lake's statements "reflect a sweeping, ideologically driven attempt to dismantle the Voice of America based on broad, unsubstantiated claims."
"This decision doesn't just gut a vital institution," Biberaj, a 43-year-veteran of the service before his retirement , also wrote. "It is profoundly harmful to our national interests, undermines key foreign policy objectives, weakens our credibility abroad, and threatens the mission that VOA has pursued for decades: to report the truth, tell America's compelling story to the world, and promote its democratic values."
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