The Senate moved closer to rubber-stamping a controversial Biden nominee as a key committee voted to advance the president’s pick to run the agency that oversees Voice of America and other U.S.-funded media with a global audience in the hundreds of millions.
During a closed-door business session on Thursday, the committee approved Amanda Bennett’s nomination to the CEO post at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, teeing up what could become a controversial fight on the Senate floor. The scandal-plagued agency is sometimes the subject of some of Washington’s fiercest bureaucratic battles.
Bennett, a former director of Voice of America, is seen by some USAGM employees and conservative activists as a staunch champion for liberal causes with a record of mismanagement. Among other things, conservatives were expected to take aim at security lapses she presided over during her tenure at VOA and bizarre editorial decisions that benefitted authoritarian regimes.
Yet, for all the controversy that Biden’s decision to nominate her was expected to cause, Bennett fielded softball questions from senators during her confirmation hearing earlier this month, prompting a House lawmaker, Michael McCaul (R., Texas), to urge Senate Republicans to take a tougher approach.
Although few senators have spoken publicly about her nomination yet, four GOP lawmakers ultimately voted no on Bennett’s nomination last week, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority spokesperson told National Review.
The office of one of the four Bennett opponents, Ted Cruz, explained his rationale, saying that the Texas Republican is particularly concerned by Bennett’s “partisanship” and reports that she used “VOA resources to advance her views on illegal immigration.”
“When Senator Cruz asked about some particularly troubling incidents, Bennett either declined to answer or even said she wasn’t clear what was being asked,” the spokesman said, adding, “Senator Cruz does not believe Bennett is appropriate to be Chief Executive Officer of the USAGM.”
During her confirmation hearing last month, Bennett defended her record, saying that she had promoted unbiased editorial standards throughout her career.
In addition to Cruz, Marco Rubio (Florida), Bill Hagerty (Tennesse), and Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) voted no.
Earlier on Thursday, the watchdog group America First Legal addressed a letter to President Biden asking him to withdraw his nomination of Bennett for CEO for presiding over the misuse of the J-1 visa program, failing to stand up for VOA Persian Service journalists targeted by the Iranian regime, and enabling security-clearance processing failures.
“A thorough and fully transparent accounting of Ms. Bennett’s tenure as VOA Director, and of her family’s business ties to the CCP, is needed to answer very serious questions regarding her past conduct and her present fitness to serve as USAGM’s CEO,” wrote America First Legal deputy director of investigations John Zadrozny.
The letter also took aim at Bennett’s handling of issues related to China, noting that she fired the then-VOA Mandarin Service chief over a live interview with Chinese dissident Guo Wengui in 2017, alleging that Bennett did so at the behest of Chinese officials.
Rubio reportedly homed in on the controversy surrounding the 2017 firing, telling Voice of America that he “had some questions” about Bennett’s conduct in that situation. In a statement to NR, he elaborated on that concern: “As Beijing continues its sophisticated influence operations, we need someone at USAGM’s helm who will stand up for the truth and refuse to bend to totalitarian pressure. Amanda Bennett is not that person.”
Editor’s note: This post was updated after publication to add Rubio’s comment.