GOP Alleges Corruption at Global Media Agency

H ouse Republicans are investigating the executive-branch agency that oversees Voice of America and other independent U.S.-funded media after its acting CEO rehired an official who had been terminated for allegedly misusing government funds and lying about her education on official government documents.

That organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), has long been a center of white-hot controversy in Washington. Among other things, critics, investigators, and whistleblowers have pointed out corruption scandals, security-clearance-processing issues, and even alleged advocacy for the authoritarian regimes whom these outlets shed light on through their reporting.

Seven Republican lawmakers led by Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to USAGM acting CEO Kelu Chao on October 27 requesting information about her decision to rehire Setareh Sieg, who had been director of VOA’s Persian News Network since 2014. They allege that Sieg’s reinstatement was unwarranted and perhaps motivated by other factors, such as an alleged friendship between the two officials. “Based on the whistleblowers’ account and new information that has come to light, we remain concerned about hiring decisions at USAGM, and the leadership under which those decisions were made,” the lawmakers write, demanding answers to a series of questions about the move.

Sieg received notice of her termination in a proposal issued on January 5 by Elizabeth Robbins, the then-deputy director of VOA. According to a document reviewed by National Review, Robbins wrote that she decided to remove Sieg from her post as director of VOA’s Persian News Network on two charges: “waste of Agency/Government funds” and “lack of candor.” These allegations hinged on claims that Sieg had improperly granted an approximately $1 million contract to comedian Max Amini, when similar programs had previously been produced for a fraction of the cost, and that she lied about earning a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, as she claimed on a professional biography posted to the VOA website. “You have shown that you are not suitable for continued federal service,” Robbins’s note concluded.

But Chao’s USAGM leadership team reinstated Sieg to her old post in February, just weeks after President Biden’s inauguration, also appointing her to an additional senior VOA role. Later, Chao’s team alleged that Sieg was the victim of a politically motivated purge carried out by Chao’s predecessor, the conservative filmmaker Michael Pack. Pack fired a number of senior staffers with USAGM-funded outlets when he arrived at the agency in 2020, empowering his many detractors, turning himself into a political lightning rod, and even earning some criticism from Republicans in Congress including McCaul, who questioned his efforts to overhaul the agency. Pack resigned on Inauguration Day after he received notice that he would be terminated; upon her appointment as acting CEO the following day, Chao removed Robbins.

Sieg’s attorneys seized on Pack’s controversial leadership to argue that her firing was illegitimate and to trash the investigation that initially led to her termination during the Trump administration. “Mr. Pack’s willingness to authorize and permit the continuation of this investigation of Dr. Sieg, a known whistleblower, was politically motivated and a gross waste of government resources,” said the Government Accountability Project’s David Seide, who represented Sieg, in an April 20 press release announcing the results of a report that Sieg’s legal team claimed dismissed the Trump-era investigation.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) also alleged that the claims about Sieg’s misconduct were unsubstantiated, claiming that USAGM has information in its possession specifically proving that Sieg did not inappropriately award a contract to Amini and that she did earn the equivalent of a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, among other things.

Per their letter, the House investigators saw several problems with the claims put forward by Sieg’s team and the USAGM leadership. Although Sieg’s lawyers claimed that she was a political target of Pack’s, the House lawmakers wrote that the agency, “even when explicitly asked to supply it, has supplied no evidence that Pack knew about the relevant individual, much less that he was involved in the investigation into her conduct.” Despite Robbins’s role in handing down the order, Republicans are adamant that Sieg’s firing had nothing to do with Pack. They point out that Michelle Stewart, a career official, spearheaded the investigation.

According to House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans, no one has furnished any evidence exonerating Sieg of the specific allegations put forward by Robbins’s proposal to remove her from the agency. GAP’s April press release only cites a USAGM report that they maintain exonerates Sieg, saying that the agency’s Labor and Employee Relations division possesses evidence that she “earned the equivalent of a PhD” from the school.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, according to McCaul and the others. Upon receiving the second report on Sieg, they “followed up on at least five occasions requesting more information” before getting a response. When USAGM did respond, according to the letter, the lawmakers’ staff found a number of “obfuscations and omissions” that warranted further investigation: French university officials and the French embassy’s higher-education office confirmed to them that the document Sieg provided the agency “was not a diploma or transcript but rather the ‘minutes’ of an in-house degree,” according to correspondence reviewed by NR. The French officials also conveyed that Sieg had not earned a doctorate. In fact, the University of Paris’s administration opened a legal review into Sieg’s academic record after being tipped off by the House investigators.

Given the contradiction of USAGM’s claims in the April report with the academic record, the lawmakers accuse the agency of “stonewalling to cover up what has transpired, shielding relevant individuals from consequences of their actions.”

Curiously, the April press release was taken down from the GAP website sometime between its publication that month and November 1, though it might well have been taken down far earlier, as congressional scrutiny heightened. Neither a representative for GAP nor Mark Zaid, an attorney for Sieg, replied to National Review’s emailed request for comment on this story. McCaul and the others are requesting any emails between Chao and Sieg’s legal team, in addition to a wide range of other correspondence across USAGM and the Trump administration.

In response to National Review’s questions about the letter, whether Sieg’s security clearance was ever completed, and the allegation that Sieg and Chao are friends, Laurie Moy, the agency’s public-affairs director, said: “The agency is in receipt of and is reviewing the letter.”

Biden has yet to nominate anyone to the CEO post, though the Washington Post reported that longtime VOA journalist Amanda Bennett is his “top candidate” for the role. The House members say that the Senate “should not move forward” with any nominations to the agency until “ongoing senior management issues have been resolved.”

In the since-removed statement, Sieg’s lawyers called her a whistleblower, but in fact, multiple whistleblowers from the agency — most of whom are registered Democrats, not Pack lackeys — have alerted congressional offices to her alleged misconduct and reinstatement. House Republicans say that it’s the whistleblowers who tipped them off to the potential friendship between Sieg and Chao that might have been behind the reinstatement. Ironically, the agency initially investigated Sieg amid whistleblower complaints that she used her government position to dole out favors to friends and family members.

Unfortunately, congressional Democrats have remained aloof throughout what should be a bipartisan investigation, as Democratic members of the committee have chosen to sit this one out. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is either openly enabling this misconduct or oblivious to the potential harm to the reputation of news outlets that are supposed to shine as beacons of hope for millions across the globe.