A group of highly paid officials in the perennially scandal-ridden U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), and a handful of federal employees of its Voice of America news operation, have found a new way to discredit media critics. They started using some of the $944 million of taxpayers' money they control to feed disinformation and selectively provide legal and logistical assistance to outside individuals to smear those shining a light on their behavior.

Congress must stop them, as more American watchdog journalists could become targets of this rogue agency's interference with their First Amendment rights.

USAGM bureaucrats found a new opportunity to go after perceived media enemies when three British academics asked them to help write a book about the short tenure of President Trump's USAGM CEO, Michael Pack.

Sadly, at the cost to U.S. taxpayers of thousands of dollars in staff time, a genuinely frightening cooperation agreement between the academics and USAGM resulted in linking Cold War journalists with "aggressive anti-Communism" and "right-wing" causes. Never mind that I have been a supporter of gay marriage, environmental protection and racial equality and critical in my op-eds in The Hill of ultra-conservative Republicans, including Tucker Carlson, for being easily duped by Vladimir Putin's propaganda.

I disagreed with some of Pack's decisions but never doubted his honesty as a public servant. He approved my choice of a Democrat for a senior Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty position. He was proven correct........

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