Washington, DC — Representative Gregory W. Meeks today issued the following statement on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority’s report on the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).  

“Today’s Republican report on USAGM spins thin facts and cherry-picks from unreleased closed-door testimony to attack the handling of management complaints related to a single USAGM employee as evidence of a purported ‘culture of corruption’ at the agency. But as the conclusion itself indicates, this report is really aimed at vindicating the troubling actions of Trump Administration political appointees during the disastrous tenure of former USAGM CEO Michael Pack. 

“The U.S. Agency for Global Media and the broadcasters and grantees it supports are at the frontlines of a global information war, pushing out factual, unbiased news in environments where Chinese, Russian, and Iranian disinformation and misinformation obfuscate the truth. Republicans have refused to even meet with the current USAGM CEO throughout this Congress, and instead have spent their time—and U.S. taxpayer resources—trying to settle petty scores through this parochial investigation. 

“I welcome USAGM’s diligent efforts nevertheless to address the Committee’s oversight questions and concerns, and I invite my Republican colleagues to rejoin Democrats in constructive support for USAGM’s important mission. I also call on Chairman McCaul to publicly release the closed-door transcripts from this investigation for the sake of transparency, so the taxpayers who have funded this investigation can draw their own conclusions on its contents, free of partisan cherry-picking.” 

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