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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing titled, “Spies, Lies, and Mismanagement: Examining the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Downfall.”

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-Remarks-

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine the efficacy of the US Agency for Global Media, by allowing members the opportunity to discuss the agency’s history of national security concerns, the use of taxpayer dollars, and the Trump administration’s vision for a path forward. And I’m now going to recognize myself for an opening statement. As we meet to discuss the downfall of the US Agency for Global Media, or USAGM as we call it, an independent government agency.

It’s an agency that can trace its roots back to fighting Nazi propaganda during World War II. But instead of staying true to its mandate of combating our adversaries and advocating for American values, in recent decades USAGM has unfortunately lost its way. Prior to this administration taking office again, the agency was riddled with OIG reports and investigations demonstrating that USAGM had been a cesspool of spies, lies and mismanagement.

That is not an exaggeration. The agency has promoted the very propaganda that it was created to defeat.

A case in point is Voice of America, or VOA as it’s known, a media outlet overseen directly by USAGM and funded by the American taxpayer, of course — because of Chinese pressure, Voice of America censored interviews with Chinese dissidents.

VOA hired an admitted Taliban fighter, a jihadist, to criticize President Trump’s terror travel ban decision — it’s reminiscent of a headline that would be in the Babylon Bee: Terrorist hired to criticize President Trump’s travel ban — while instructing its reporters not to call Hamas terrorists, unless they used air quotes when they did so.

VOA suppressed negative stories about Iran and its terrorist proxies. And VOA, which peddled the Russian collusion hoax, hired foreign nationals who previously worked for Russian state sponsored news outlets to tell that story.

USAGM is a government agency tasked with promoting American ideals. But instead, it’s hired foreign adversaries with your tax dollars, who promoted anti-American propaganda, both at home and abroad.

This is only a partisan issue because President Trump is in the White House. The fact is, Republicans and Democrat administrations alike have exposed USAGM’s hiring, vetting and messaging failures.

During the Biden era, the State Department Inspector General found that USAGM skirted federal hiring guidelines when doling out jobs to foreign nationals. Many of these foreign nationals were quite literally security risks, yet they were given access to extremely sensitive information. To be specific, what’s known as tier 3 and tier 5, which are the equivalent of secret and top secret information. Everybody should be asking themselves why foreign nationals hired to be journalists need access to top secret information that most foreign militaries don’t get access to.

This was not just incompetence. It was taxpayer funded self-sabotage. American taxpayers would have been better off if that money had just been lit on fire.

Before President Trump won his historic second term, USAGM embraced and regurgitated enemy propaganda. It became a mouthpiece for our adversaries paid for, again, by your tax dollars. And we’re here to say that the grift is over.

It’s not that USAGM has never provided any value. It’s that USAGM had drastically lost their way and allowed themselves to become a source of espionage. However, it’s clear that USAGM cannot continue to operate as it has in recent times. Drastic measures have to be taken to ensure that every taxpayer dollar for where those dollars come from, the American people. Not Xi Jinping. Not Vladimir Putin, not the Ayatollah.

I want to thank our witness, Kari Lake, for appearing in front of this committee today. I’m looking forward to hearing your testimony. I’m looking forward to a productive and probably a rowdy discussion about the Trump administration’s vision for the future of US broadcasting.

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