House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) just released a report on the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), accusing its federal executives of tolerating a "culture of corruption" in managing government-funded news broadcasts for audiences abroad, especially at the Voice of America (VOA)

The report describes "severe abuses of power," including "a stark failure of employee vetting — particularly when foreign credentials are involved — that confirms longstanding security concerns about the agency."

My connection to the Voice of America and its managing agency deepened my concern after the committee released its latest report. I dedicated my career to the cause of press freedom, working at VOA and its agency from 1973 until 2006, where I played a pivotal role in bringing democracy to Poland as the chief of VOA's Polish Service.

I reported for VOA from behind the Iron Curtain. I interviewed dissidents and pro-democracy leaders, including Solidarity leader and future Polish President Lech Wałęsa, future Pope John Paul II and George H.W. Bush. Later, I built a network of affiliate stations in Afghanistan and other countries and served in various leadership roles. This personal history underscores my fears over the gravity of the situation.

Recent management failures, as described by Rep. McCaul, would have been ample grounds for the White House to ask USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett and longtime key aide Kelu Chao — both severely criticized in the report — to resign, even though the Foreign Affairs chairman is from the opposing party. Perhaps to forestall any action by the Biden administration, Bennett lashed out at McCaul, accusing the committee of "callous attempts to malign hardworking civil servants."

Yet it seems to me that hiring not one but several former Putin propagandists to do news reporting for the Voice of America on sensitive international affairs topics, as the Voice of America did under Bennett's watch, does not suggest arduous work or vigilance by these highly paid USAGM and Voice of America executives.

Let us also not forget that they failed to predict the rapid fall of Afghanistan to the........

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