[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


    OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA AND U.S. 
                   INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING EFFORTS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                           September 29, 2020
                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-112
                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
        
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]        


       Available:  http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
                            docs.house.gov, 
                       or http://www.govinfo.gov
                       
                       
                              ___________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
41-962PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2022                          



                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                   ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York               Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey		     CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia	     STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	     JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California		     SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	     TED S. YOHO, Florida	
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	     ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California		     LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas		     JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada		     ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York	     BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California		     FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	     BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota	     JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		     KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas		     RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		     GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	     TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	     GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	     STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland		     MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
                                     
                    Jason Steinbaum, Staff Director

               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director



                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Turner, Grant, Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Agency for Global 
  Media..........................................................     9
Kornbluh, The Honorable Karen, Chair of the Board of Directors 
  Open Technology Fund...........................................    37
Bennett, Amanda, Former Director of the Voice of America.........    42
Fly, Jamie, Former President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty..    45
Crocker, The Honorable Ryan, Board Member, Open Technology Fund..    47

                  INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Letter submitted for the record to the Honorable Michael Pack....    54
Joint statement submitted for the record from Representatives 
  McCaul and Blackburn...........................................    57
McCaul statement submitted for the record........................    61
Letter submitted for the record from Mr. Pack....................    68

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    96
Hearing Minutes..................................................    98
Hearing Attendance...............................................    99

         STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY

Statement for record from Representative Connolly................   100

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................   102

             ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Statement for the record from Mr. David Kligerman................   104
Additional information submitted for the record from Ms. Bennett.   110

 
    OVERSIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA AND U.S. 
                   INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING EFFORTS

                      Thursday, September 24, 2020

                           House of Representatives
                       Committee on Foreign Affairs
                                                     Washington, DC

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in 
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eliot Engel 
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
    Mr. Engel. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come to 
order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any point, and all members will have 
5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions 
for the record subject to the length limitation in the rules.
    To insert something into the record, please have your staff 
email the previously circulated address or contact full 
committee staff. As a reminder to members, staff, and others 
physically present in this room, per guidance from the Office 
of Attending Physician, masks must be worn at all times during 
today's proceedings, except when a member or a witness is 
speaking. Please also sanitize your seating area.
    The chair views these measures as a safety issues and, 
therefore, an important matter of order and decorum for this 
proceeding.
    For members participating remotely, please keep your video 
function on at all times, even when you are not recognized by 
the chair. Members are responsible for muting and unmuting 
themselves, and please remember to mute yourself after you have 
finished speaking. Consistent with House Resolution 965 and the 
accompanying regulations, staff will only mute members and 
witnesses, as appropriate, when they are not under recognition, 
to eliminate background noise.
    I see that we have quorum and I now recognize myself for 
opening remarks.
    The committee meets this morning to examine American 
international broadcasting efforts under the U.S. Agency for 
Global Media. For weeks, we expected the opportunity to hear 
from and question USAGM's new CEO, Mr. Michael Pack. Mr. Pack's 
brief tenure has been a rocky and controversial one. He 
immediately removed Voice of America's leadership as well as 
the presidents and boards of Radio Free Europe/Radio Free 
Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting 
Network.
    Removing the experienced boards from the services to 
replace them with new boards consisting of himself, his chief 
of staff, a number of Trump Administration political 
appointees, and the senior counsel of an organization the 
Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-LBGT hate 
group. He tried to fire the acting CEO and board of the Open 
Technology Fund, but a court reversed his decision.
    He removed the standards editor from Voice of America, the 
watchdog who makes sure VOA's content meets all the benchmarks 
of independent journalism. He declined to renew the visas for 
Voice of America journalists who came to the United States to 
produce unbiased news and information. I want to emphasize 
this: the U.S. Government asked these people to come work for 
us because of their expertise and language skills, to send news 
back to countries where press freedoms are often threatened. 
Now some of these people are being forced to leave the country. 
It is shocking that the U.S. Government would treat any 
journalist that way, let alone one we have asked to do the job.
    Mr. Pack cutoff funding for Open Technology Fund, OTF, 
funding that Congress had approved. To remind everyone of what 
OTF does, they support development of circumvention and 
communication tools so that journalists and citizens are better 
able to share news and information in countries where 
governments try to censor and stifle those things. We are 
talking about places like Belarus, Iran, China, and Venezuela. 
And he has suspended a number of senior USAGM officials in what 
I believe to be a retaliatory and improper action.
    Three months ago, I invited Mr. Pack to appear before this 
committee to answer our questions and explain his alarming 
first few weeks on the job. On August 3d, his office made a 
commitment to appear here today. Let me repeat that. On August 
3d, his office made a commitment to appear here today. A week 
ago, shortly after the committee noticed this hearing, his 
office called back to tell us he was breaking his commitment. 
That is, breaking his commitment.
    USAGM refused to provide specific reasons, stating only 
that there were ``administrative proceedings'' that required 
Mr. Pack's attention. The committee has since learned that Mr. 
Pack personally scheduled for today an administrative hearing 
for those people he suspended. He notified those individuals 
last Thursday, the same day USAGM told the committee he was 
backing out of this hearing.
    My understanding is that under USAGM regulations and 
standard Federal agency practice, the head of agencies should 
not even be involved in such administrative hearings, that they 
should be left to the security professionals. USAGM proposed 
other dates in October, when the House is in recess. It is my 
view that Mr. Pack manufactured this conflict to get out of 
being here today, so the committee issued a subpoena to compel 
his testimony. With the chair at the witness table empty, Mr. 
Pack is now in defiance of that subpoena.
    Our international broadcasting efforts are a critical 
foreign policy tool. USAGM's constituent services provide high-
quality, independent news and information in some of the most 
closed-off places in the world. The best way to push back on 
the propaganda coming out of Russia, China, and elsewhere is to 
provide the truth, plain and simple. We need competent 
leadership at the helm of those efforts. We need someone who 
understands journalism and respects journalists.
    We need someone who understands that the head of a Federal 
agency is accountable and that Congress has a constitutional 
right to conduct oversight. We need someone who respects the 
law and allows our broadcasters to operate free from 
interference. Mr. Pack has made clear in his short tenure that 
he meets none of those qualifications.
    He is making a mockery of a U.S. agency that has long 
enjoyed strong bipartisan support and he has shown tremendous 
disrespect for the committee, our committee, and its role 
overseeing USAGM. He is the wrong person for the job. He should 
resign. And if he does not, the President should fire him.
    Since Mr. Pack will not talk to us, we will instead hear 
from some of those he has pushed out or tried to push out, 
competent public servants and journalists who, because they 
were committed to doing their jobs well, had no place in Mr. 
Pack's USAGM.
    I will now yield to the ranking member for any opening 
comments he has.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to each of the 
witnesses who are appearing before us here today.
    The U.S. Agency for Global Media's mission is to further 
press an internet freedom around the world. Recently, I and 
many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have grown 
very concerned the Agency's mission is being undermined from 
the top. Most problematic to me has been what I can only 
characterize as the impoundment of funds meant for the Open 
Technology Fund. OTF was stood up as an independent grantee 
last year in a bipartisan manner by Congress. Yet despite a 
track record of success in providing internet access and other 
vital support to those in China, Iran, Russia, and other 
authoritarian States, CEO Pack has ignored the will of Congress 
and withheld millions of dollars in funding from OTF.
    This is not a typical DC policy discussion. I believe his 
actions damaged support during the height of unrest in Hong 
Kong and they are continuing to do so today in Belarus. Their 
tragic lack of support to freedom and democracy movements is 
also regrettable because, in my judgment, it directly 
undermines key priorities of this Administration that I have 
discussed at the very top levels.
    And that, unfortunately, isn't the only concerning action. 
In sum, USAGM has not been responsive to Congress in many 
cases. We have asked the Agency for their strategic response to 
the situation in Belarus, but have received no response. Our 
office inquired about the return of Radio Free Europe to 
Hungary, but received no response.
    Also after most of the front office was placed on 
administrative leave, we simply asked for the names of those 
people who were heading the key offices at USAGM, but like so 
many of our other questions, this too was met with silence. We 
are a separate and equal branch of government and, Mr. 
Chairman, this committee deserves the respect of a response.
    Make no mistake, I believe there is some reform that needs 
to be done at USAGM and that should take place, and any 
questionable content such as the video which aired on Voice of 
America that seemingly appeared to endorse Vice President 
Biden, that should also be thoroughly investigated. There is no 
place for this type of politics inside the USAGM.
    But I do not think we should throw the baby out with the 
bath water here, and I ask today once again for CEO Pack to 
release the funding approved by Congress under Article I of the 
Constitution and release the funding that was approved by 
Congress for OTF and to meaningfully engage with Congress to 
provide answers to the basic questions we must ask as part of 
our oversight duties.
    Unfortunately, as Mr. Pack has decided not to attend 
today's hearing despite a subpoena from this committee and from 
Congress, I hope that today's witnesses can provide us with 
details about what is going on at the USAGM and his absence. I 
believe that, Mr. Chairman, if we--this technology is so 
important in countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North 
Korea to communicate within the country, inside and outside, 
and people in the country to communicate amongst themselves so 
that they can be in a position to yield back from their 
oppressors.
    Without this important tool that Congress has authorized 
and funded, we will have a very difficult time in this mission 
for greater democracy and freedom throughout the world. And 
with that I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. I thank my friend, the ranking member. And 
pursuant to notice, the committee has convened today to conduct 
oversight of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and U.S. 
international broadcasting efforts. As Mr. Pack has decided to 
defy the committee's duly authorized subpoena, we will reset 
the witness table for our second panel.
    Our witnesses today----
    Mr. Sires. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Engel. Mr. Sires?
    Mr. Sires. I have a question. Why do not we leave the empty 
chair with his name on there to show the people that he just 
blew our subpoena, of Mr. Pack?
    Mr. Engel. That is fine with me.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Sires.
    Our witnesses today have played a variety of roles at USAGM 
over the years and bring a wealth of experience on our 
international broadcasting efforts. Their backgrounds range 
from diplomacy to journalism to policy to government 
Administration. What they have in common is that Mr. Pack 
pushed them all out of their roles at USAGM, or tried to.
    In my view, you have all served admirably and should be 
thanked for your hard work advancing USAGM's important mission.
    Ambassador Karen Kornbluh is chair of the board of 
directors of the Open Technology Fund. She also served on the 
boards of the other services until Mr. Pack removed her, and on 
the Board of Governors. She also served as the U.S. Ambassador 
to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 
during the Obama Administration.
    Ambassador Ryan Crocker also sits on the board of the Open 
Technology Fund and was previously a member of the other 
service boards. At the State Department, Ambassador Crocker was 
one of our most distinguished career diplomats serving as 
United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, 
Kuwait, and Lebanon. I would say that is in the middle of the 
fight.
    Ms. Amanda Bennett is the former director of the Voice of 
America where she served from 2016 until June of this year. She 
is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who previously worked at 
Bloomberg News, The Lexington Herald-Leader, The Oregonian, and 
the Wall Street Journal.
    Mr. Jamie Fly is the former president of Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty, and is now a senior fellow and senior advisor to 
the president at the German Marshall Fund. He previously worked 
as a counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs for 
Senator Rubio, and served on the National Security Council 
staff during the George W. Bush Administration.
    Mr. Grant Turner is the chief financial officer of the 
United States Agency for Global Media, and also served as the 
interim CEO of the Agency from the fall of last year until 
June. He previously served as the budget director for the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation and at the Office of 
Management and Budget during the Bush and Obama 
Administrations.
    Without objection, your complete written testimony will be 
made part of the record of this hearing, and I will recognize 
you for 5 minutes, each, to summarize your testimony.
    Mr. Turner, we will begin with you.

STATEMENT OF GRANT TURNER, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, U.S. AGENCY 
                        FOR GLOBAL MEDIA

    Mr. Turner. Thank you, Chairman Engel, Ranking Member 
McCaul, and members of the committee. I am testifying today to 
disclose significant concerns about the U.S. Agency for Global 
Media specifically related to the dire events that have been 
unfolding at the Agency over the past few months. First, 
though, let me start by telling you a little bit about myself 
and USAGM.
    I have been privileged to serve in the U.S. Federal Civil 
Service as a career employee for 17 years, most of the last 
four at this Agency. My tenure has spanned multiple 
Presidential Administrations. I began working for the Federal 
Government with GAO and then I worked for OMB for 6 years, 
three under President Bush and three under President Obama.
    I have served as the budget director for the MCC and also 
for the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. I have a lot of experience in 
government operations, but nothing in my 17 years come even 
close to the gross mismanagement, the abuse of authority, the 
violations of law that have occurred since Michael Pack assumed 
the role of CEO at USAGM in June of this year.
    Until I was abruptly removed by Mr. Pack in mid-August, I 
served as the Agency's chief financial officer. For the 9-
months preceding that I was the acting CEO. Based on my many 
interactions with this committee and your staffs on a 
bipartisan basis, I know you care very much about our mission 
to bring truthful news and information to our audiences 
overseas, and I truly thank you for that years-long 
partnership.
    Today, USAGM networks broadcast in 61 languages to over 100 
countries worldwide, reaching 350 million viewers, listeners, 
and readers weekly. Our networks include the Voice of America, 
Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East 
Broadcasting Networks, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and our 
newest grantee, the Open Technology Fund. They are truly a gift 
from the American people to the world.
    We sometimes forget living in our very rich media 
environment that much of the world is quite underserved. As one 
of my colleagues on this hearing, Amanda Bennett, is fond of 
saying, our organization exports the First Amendment. It is 
part of the foundation of our Nation's success. So I am very 
proud to be associated with the 4,000 employees that do the 
work at USAGM and it is a privilege to be associated with the 
journalists, the editors, the production specialists, 
technology experts, and support staff. They are very passionate 
about what they do.
    During the past 4 years, the Agency has made notable and 
important progress especially thanks to the input and support 
of this committee. So thank you. We have modernized the 
platforms that we broadcast on, moving as media markets evolve 
and going to where our audiences want us to be, from radio to 
TV to social media. A testament to how well the Agency has 
performed in the last several years is borne out by numerous 
metrics.
    For instance, between the beginning of Fiscal Year 2016 and 
now, our global weekly audience has grown from 226 million 
people per week to 350 million people per week, a 55 percent 
increase. It is a good example that we are responding 
effectively to fast-moving media markets, and it is a tangible 
demonstration that people across the globe crave the truth.
    Our colleagues are journalists. The Agency does not do 
propaganda. Our charters mandate that the editorial decisions 
are made without outside influence. They are protected by what 
we call a firewall and that firewall is much more than an 
abstract concept. It is the law and it has been the law for 
over three decades.
    Our audiences live in places that are awash in government 
spin, propaganda, and misinformation, or countries where there 
simply is not any press and we fill that vacuum with journalism 
that aims to be the best in class. Unfortunately, I have 
worried about what Mr. Pack has done since his arrival. Like 
many of you, I am worried about the credibility and the 
goodwill of our networks being destroyed.
    It has taken, literally, decades to build this trust with 
our audience and, tragically, it can be destroyed far more 
quickly. That is what I fear is happening now. I am worried 
about our failure to support important technology tools 
developed by the Open Technology Fund. OTF funds internet 
firewall circumvention tools used by our audiences in Iran and 
China and Russia and other closed societies to freely access 
the internet and our content.
    Within days of Mr. Pack's arrival, he declared war on OTF. 
First, he started by firing its leadership. Then he choked off 
its funding. At one point, after learning from OTF that we 
might lose important tools, I sent an urgent email to Mr. 
Pack's team essentially pleading for permission to release 
funds to OTF and I highlighted what was at stake.
    For instance, in the case of Iran, we risked losing 84 
percent of the audience if we did not fund OTF's tools. To put 
this in context, we are the No. 1 international broadcaster in 
Iran. Many people do not know this. We have nearly 25 percent 
of Iranian adults tuning in to our coverage each week. Voice of 
America and Radio Free Europe's Radio Farda brand are the No. 1 
TV and radio broadcasters there.
    Here is a country where we worry about a war breaking out 
where the Iranian people are fed a steady diet of 
misinformation and half-truths about America, but every night, 
a quarter million of Iranian adults--a quarter, rather, of 
Iranian adults tune in to USAGM. From the VOA studios that are 
just two blocks from this room to the living rooms of the 
Iranian people, we bring unfiltered, truthful news about 
America, our policies, and our country's values. That is 
tremendous soft power and it is, unfortunately, at grave risk 
right now.
    OTF is not the only example. In the two and a half months I 
worked under Mr. Pack, he repeatedly breached the firewall 
designed to protect journalists and editors from political 
influence. Months ago, he removed standards editor Steve 
Springer from Voice of America. He removed the executive editor 
from Radio Free Asia, Bay Fang, who is the person who leads our 
overall China strategy at that network.
    It was Mr. Pack who simultaneously fired the presidents of 
all our networks including Jamie Fly who is testifying here 
today. Those actions and many others led the Senate 
appropriators to put a hold on some of our funding. Mr. Pack 
chose to ignore that hold that they placed on our funding. To 
be clear, Mr. Pack's failures to act in many areas are of 
concern of me, folks who are testifying today, and the 
employees of USAGM, and I think all of you.
    To close my remarks, I would just like to quickly mention a 
few other things, irresponsible acts of financial mismanagement 
that have taken hold under Mr. Pack. For example, I found 
myself frequently fielding calls from the leadership of our 
grantee networks who were being starved of resources because 
Mr. Pack's team would not disburse funds on a timely basis.
    Both Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia contacted me to 
say if they did not receive funds soon they would not be able 
to meet payroll. You know, this is no way to run a railroad. 
Mr. Pack's team refused to approve a simple cleaning contract 
for our Kuwait shortwave facility in the middle of a pandemic.
    They refused for weeks to approve a contract to order 
toilet paper for our Thailand transmitting facility. This had 
nothing to do with shortages of toilet paper during the 
pandemic. We had sources identified. Mr. Pack's team just did 
not want to approve the order for weeks. I do not know why. So 
staff just brought in their own toilet paper from home. That 
unusual problem still existed when I left the Agency. Maybe it 
is still the case today.
    Based on what I have witnessed from small issues to very 
big ones, I do not believe Mr. Pack and his team came to run 
the Agency. I do not think they even like it. This just is not 
what normal people do. It is not what normal management looks 
like, certainly not in the world I come from and probably not 
in yours either. I fear their mismanagement will continue to 
erode the performance of the Agency and with any misstep they 
will just use that to fire more people and continue to 
diminishing the Agency.
    So to close, we need your help. You will hear from 
excellent people today. Please continue to practice the kind of 
strong oversight that you are doing. It is truly helpful and it 
may stop or at least slow the abuses that you are hearing 
about. USAGM is a very valuable Agency to help create the kind 
of world that most Americans want to live in.
    I look forward to answering any of your questions later in 
the hearing. Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Turner follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Engel. Thank you very much for that testimony. Very 
important and we appreciate it.
    Ambassador Kornbluh.

 STATEMENT OF KAREN KORNBLUH, CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
                      OPEN TECHNOLOGY FUND

    Ms. Kornbluh. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Engel, Ranking 
Member McCaul, and members of the committee for holding this 
hearing and for receiving my testimony. I am privileged to 
serve as chair of the board of the--sorry--chair of the board 
of directors of the Open Technology Fund, and I am here today 
representing that bipartisan expert board.
    I have worked at the intersection of democracy, technology, 
and independent media for many years, currently at the German 
Marshall Fund. Previously, I served, as you mentioned, as U.S. 
Ambassador to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and 
Development where I negotiated on behalf of the U.S. the first 
global internet policymaking principles. You have invited me 
here today to discuss the challenges posed by USAGM's new 
leadership to the Open Technology Fund and thereby to America's 
internet freedom efforts abroad.
    OTF is a bipartisan American success story. It is 
absolutely critical to U.S. efforts to combat the rise of 
digital authoritarianism. But, unfortunately, the Agency has 
defunded and is now disparaging this small but crucial 
organization, undermining both USAGM's mission and the cause of 
internet freedom at a time when they are needed most.
    As you know, the internet is a vital information lifeline 
for billions worldwide including USAGM's audience of over 345 
million people. Authoritarians increasingly strive to sever 
this lifeline. Over two-thirds of the world's population live 
in a country where the internet is censored. OTF was created 
precisely to respond to this threat and has done so through a 
considered, multipronged approach.
    OTF has directly funded more than a hundred internet 
freedom technologies used by over two billion people globally, 
including both circumvention tools such as those that enable 
tens of millions of users in China and Iran to avoid 
censorship, and secure anti-surveillance technologies such as 
those relied on by journalists and democracy activists in Hong 
Kong and Belarus.
    In addition, OTF has fostered a global community of 
technologists, digital security experts, journalists, and human 
rights defenders advancing internet freedom. By connecting 
these groups and individuals, OTF has helped to grow the 
community to thousands around the world. Research efforts 
funded by OTF have also been essential to exposing aggressive 
new threats in places like Xinjiang and developing next 
generation solutions including, for example, AI-powered 
circumvention techniques.
    OTF has funded security audits that have exposed and 
patched over 2,000 vulnerabilities and supported the 
translation of freedom technologies into more than 200 
languages. Through this rich, multipronged strategy, OTF has 
not only supported the development of the world's leading 
technologies, but has also empowered millions of people living 
in censored countries to access USAGM content and other sources 
of independent news and information online.
    Both Congress and the U.S. Department of State have 
recognized that OTF has become a critical bulwark against 
rising digital authoritarianism. Yet in June, Mr. Pack 
attempted to fire OTF's expert leadership and remove its 
independent, bipartisan board of directors. Those moves were, 
thankfully, blocked by a unanimous decision of the DC Circuit 
Court of Appeals.
    In addition, USAGM representatives have leveled a variety 
of accusations the organization has repeatedly refuted 
providing over 200 pages of information and documentation and 
offering numerous times to undergo additional independent 
financial audits. We have offered a GAO assessment and/or an 
OIG investigation, but USAGM has refused making it clear that 
the goal is not to resolve evidence-based concerns but, rather, 
to discredit OTF.
    More devastating, the Agency continues to withhold nearly 
20 million in congressionally allocated funds, forcing OTF to 
halt 49 out of its 60, or 80 percent, of its ongoing internet 
freedom programs. This has meant leaving journalists, human 
rights defenders, and activists around the world without the 
tools they need. In just 4 months, the world's leading funder 
of internet freedom technologies, OTF, has been dismantled and 
U.S. internet freedom and democracy efforts around the globe 
have been crippled.
    Authoritarian regimes have made it abundantly clear that 
they are willing to do and spend what it takes to extend their 
control over the internet. From Xinjiang to Tehran to Minsk, 
repressive regimes are deploying a new generation of advanced 
technology designed to stifle dissent, track minorities, and 
manipulate content online. And while these were once the 
tactics of a few rogue regimes, they are now a global threat 
with governments around the world investing billions of dollars 
in the latest censorship and surveillance systems each year.
    The United States has and should continue to confront these 
threats head-on in an effort to preserve the internet as 
democratic space for free expression. Instead, recent actions 
have undermined critical U.S. foreign policy and national 
security priorities and imperiled the lives of millions of 
journalists, activists, and human rights defenders by leaving 
them vulnerable around the world.
    For the U.S. Government to maintain its role as a global 
leader on internet freedom at this critical moment in history, 
it is urgent that it restore OTF's funding and recommit to its 
important work. I thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Kornbluh follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Engel. Thank you very much for your testimony.
    We now go to Ms. Bennett.

 STATEMENT OF AMANDA BENNETT, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE VOICE OF 
                            AMERICA

    Ms. Bennett. Chairman Engel, Ranking Member McCaul, 
committee members, thank you. I am Amanda Bennett, the former 
director of Voice of America, and I have had the privilege of 
interacting with many of you on this committee on both sides of 
the aisle. I have found you sometimes critical, sometimes 
complimentary, but always supportive and understanding of our 
mission.
    I am here because I care deeply about our country's 
institutions, most importantly the institution of the free 
press and our First Amendment. As a result of this, I have come 
to care deeply about VOA and its missions which embody those 
values around the world. Although unlike some others here I 
have not been involved in USAGM since my departure, I welcome 
the opportunity to use my expertise and experience to talk 
about the fact that I think is most important to the success of 
VOA and USAGM which is the legislative firewall that protects 
the journalists' independence.
    And while I speak of VOA, the institution for which I am 
most familiar, everything I say applies equally to USAGM and 
the rest of the entities. They operate under exactly the same 
legislation and practices and customs. I believe my 
journalistic career sets me up perfectly to talk about this 
legislative separation. My career spans nearly 50 years, all 
but the previous four in private industry.
    Beginning as a student at Harvard Crimson, I then spent 23 
years at the Wall Street Journal where I was their second 
Beijing correspondent. I have held senior positions including 
top editor positions at four other leading news organizations. 
I am a two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient and I have served for 
nearly a decade on the board that awards those prizes. 
Therefore, I think I can say that I have wide experience with 
which the legislation regarding the U.S. Agency for Global 
Media calls the highest standards of professional journalism.
    VOA is America's largest international broadcaster, a 
hundred percent government-funded but, by law, operationally 
independent. VOA distributes news and information by radio, 
television, and digital in 47 languages to over 60 countries. 
In most of VOA's markets, VOA is the only source of critical 
news. Journalism is at the heart of USAGM's mission, with the 
word ``journalism'' embedded for decades throughout the 
governing laws and regulations.
    Unlike other government messaging operations, we do not 
message. We provide useful, credible, and independent news and 
information. The single most important factor in that 
effectiveness is the editorial separation between news and any 
outside interference. This separation is known informally as 
the ``firewall,'' and is made up over decades with laws, 
regulations, and common practices.
    The very fact that our news is provided outside the control 
of any party and power gives VOA its own power, and audiences 
around the world see and appreciate the credible information 
VOA provides. Around the world in the markets that VOA surveys, 
it enjoys 60 to 80 percent credibility ratings even, as Mr. 
Turner remarked, even in countries like Iran that are 
considered hostile to America.
    And this legal separation is the single most important 
thing that distinguishes government-funded, independent news 
from the propaganda that many of our authoritarian regimes that 
we covered practice. Under the protection of the firewall, VOA 
over the previous 4 years refocused on its mission as the free 
press to the world. It refocused on its charter mandate to 
represent all and not just some Americans. It increased 
resources devoted not just to Washington but to the center of 
the country.
    In telling America's story, VOA reported proudly on the 
things that America excels at and that much of the world wants 
to know about--technology, entrepreneurship, medical advances 
and research, education, and philanthropy--while at the same 
time reporting, unflinchingly, on failings like school 
shootings and racial tension. We also provided panels of global 
medical experts on COVID-19, giving information much needed in 
places that had no other access to it.
    Combating bias in journalism is a critical task and 
especially so in today's polarized environment. VOA made bias 
training mandatory and through regular communication made 
eliminating bias a priority. VOA was tough on ethics 
violations, on internal corruption, and on inappropriate use of 
social media. VOA's leaders were transparent and forthcoming in 
these matters and outsiders knew of these actions immediately 
because VOA disclosed them immediately.
    In addition, VOA extended its original mission of bringing 
news and information to those most isolated by launching 
broadcasting into refugee camps and dramatically increasing 
focus on women in the world. The team also moved VOA decisively 
into the digital space where its audience's attention was 
rapidly moving. One success in particular bears noting.
    Morale, for which the Agency had been rightfully 
criticized, rose steadily during those 4 years, with overall 
employee satisfaction jumping from 47 percent in 2016 to over 
70 percent in 2020, using a survey that replicated the usual 
methods and questions. This is proof that the power of the 
mission works. Morale improves when you treat people with 
respect, support a mission with a high and inspirational 
purpose, set high ethical standards, and enforce them 
rigorously but fairly.
    People want the organization to perform in the way it is 
intended to perform and to accomplish the mission it is tasked 
with accomplishing. I want nothing but success for VOA, all of 
the entities, and the USAGM. When the organization runs 
smoothly under the protection of this firewall and operates 
proudly regardless of whatever party is in charge of the 
government as has been the case for decades, it will be yet 
another testament to the strength and power of the institution 
and of the free press.
    I encourage everyone to please respect and strengthen, if 
possible, the firewall that makes this all possible. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bennett follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Bennett.
    We now go to Mr. Fly.

 STATEMENT OF JAMIE FLY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF RADIO FREE EUROPE/
                         RADIO LIBERTY

    Mr. Fly. Chairman Engel, Ranking Member McCaul, other 
members of the committee, I want to thank you for holding this 
hearing and inviting me to testify today. I am going to briefly 
summarize my written testimony.
    I first want to associate myself with the testimony of my 
colleagues. We all had different vantage points during our time 
working together at USAGM, but I share the concerns they have 
expressed especially about the editorial independence of the 
networks and the brave journalists that work at all of our 
networks.
    Until June of this year, I was honored to serve as 
president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty which as 
we have discussed is a congressionally funded broadcaster 
reaching 38 million people across 23 countries in 27 languages. 
It is often referred to as RFE/RL which I will stick to to make 
this--let it go faster. RFE/RL and the other private entities 
that receive grants from USAGM provide objective news and 
information to audiences around the world and help citizens 
hold governments accountable for their actions.
    You have heard a bit about my background. I have worked my 
entire career in national security and foreign policy. I have 
served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, on the 
National Security Council staff of President George W. Bush. I 
was Marco Rubio's foreign policy advisor for 4 years in the 
U.S. Senate and also advised him during the 2016 Presidential 
campaign on foreign policy. In July 2019, the bipartisan USAGM 
board selected me to be RFE/RL's president and CEO for a period 
of 3 years.
    I was drawn to this work at RFE/RL because I believe that 
given some trial information in our modern societies, it is 
more important than ever to the fate of democracies that we 
modernize the tools that helped win the cold war for this new 
digital age. As you know, RFE/RL was key to that cold war of 
success.
    While I was president of RFE/RL, I worked to make the 
network more effective in addressing current and future 
challenges. When I arrived at the organization last summer, I 
found that constant leadership turnover had caused significant 
chaos and drift. Funding gaps were widespread, a roughly flat 
budget was increasingly allowing competitors to hire away staff 
and putting the network at a disadvantage in key markets.
    Russia, which is our most significant competition across 
Eurasia, but then also others were outspending RFE/RL by 
several orders of magnitude. Morale across the organization was 
low. My team and I began quickly to try to make improvements 
that were fully supported by the organization's bipartisan 
corporate board at the time, which I should note included a 
representative of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
    These changes were supported by USAGM leadership and I 
briefed these changes to Members of Congress and their staff, 
including some of you on this committee. After just 10 months 
as president and despite a once-in-a-century pandemic that 
significantly impacted our operations, we were making real 
progress.
    We increased RFE/RL's focus on digital platforms which 
experienced significant audience growth during the pandemic. We 
expanded investigative reporting and prioritized journalistic 
professionalism and training. We increased coverage of China's 
growing influence across Eurasia, and we developed new tools to 
combat disinformation. As I left, we were developing strategies 
to expand our audience inside Russia despite coming under 
significant pressure from the Kremlin. I also oversaw the 
preparations for RFE/RL's return to Hungary, which culminated 2 
weeks ago in the launch of RFE/RL's new digital Hungarian 
service.
    Finally, we worked to improve RFE/RL's security and 
countered attempts by foreign governments to threaten or 
pressure our employees. All of this work unexpectedly ended in 
mid-June, days after the Senate confirmed Michael Pack to be 
USAGM's chief executive officer. In the early hours of June 
18th, in Prague, where RFE/RL is headquartered, I received an 
email informing me that I had been removed from my post without 
cause. This action occurred without a single conversation 
between me and Michael Pack after he took office, which my 
understanding was the same case with the other network heads 
that were removed.
    I know that RFE/RL staff have subsequently reacted to my 
firing with shock, frustration, anger, and most concerning, 
uncertainty about RFE/RL's future. To date, more than 3 months 
later, no successors have been named to replace me or my 
counterparts at the other networks. Sadly, CEO Pack's arrival 
has brought only more chaos and uncertainty to U.S. 
international broadcasting. The turmoil cannot come at a worse 
time. To be blunt, I fear we are falling behind our competitors 
in the information space.
    In a few short months, CEO Pack has put the Agency he 
oversees and the grantee networks he funds, including RFE/RL, 
at significant and potentially irreparable risk. In my written 
testimony, I outline several potential reforms to U.S. 
international broadcasting so that the U.S. can remain 
competitive in efforts to counter disinformation, support 
independent media, and strengthen democracies.
    First, to do this Congress will need to increase funding 
for these tools of American soft power, but that obviously 
requires consistent, nonpartisan leadership of USAGM. But even 
beyond that, more significant actions will be required. Two I 
would like to highlight here are for Congress to pass a new 
international broadcasting act that would clarify the roles and 
responsibilities of the various networks and examine the 
question of how best to explain American foreign policy to 
foreign audiences which is at the heart of recent Trump 
Administration attacks on the Agency.
    Second, as part of these reforms, I would urge Congress to 
make the private grantees, including RFE/RL, even more 
independent of the U.S. Government. Despite the firewall, their 
independence continues to be threatened. The independence of 
these networks and their journalists is essential to their 
credibility with their audiences. It is what attracts 
listeners, readers, and viewers to their content. It is what 
allows RFE/RL's brave and intrepid journalists to take risks on 
a daily basis to report the truth.
    The politicization of USAGM and the undermining of the 
grantees' corporate boards by Mr. Pack are putting this 
credibility and their work at risk. I urge you to take action 
to ensure that this damage to these vital institutions does not 
go further. Thank you for your attention.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Fly follows:]

    ***No statement provided by press time.****
    Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Fly.
    Now Ambassador Crocker is next, but he is having some 
technology issues so we are only going to hear his audio. But I 
am sure he has important things to tell us, so I now recognize 
you, Ambassador.
    Ambassador Crocker.

 STATEMENT OF RYAN CROCKER, BOARD MEMBER, OPEN TECHNOLOGY FUND

    Mr. Crocker. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, 
Ranking Member McCaul. Believe me, getting here this morning 
was not half the fun.
    I served on the board of the Broadcasting Board of 
Governors from--and later USAGM--for almost 7 years from August 
2013 until June 2020. During that period, I was privileged to 
witness a complete makeover of the USAGM program. When I came 
aboard, the BBG was essentially an entity that was running 
without a CEO. It was as though a part-time Board of Governors 
was managing by remote an $800 million entity. It made no 
sense.
    So one of the first steps we took was to create a CEO 
position, and, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, you will 
recall this, but we consulted broadly on the Hill, both sides 
of the aisle, to explain what the problem was with not having a 
CEO and to seek support for naming one. We got that support and 
after a vigorous search, we hired John Lansing who has now 
moved on to be the CEO for NPR.
    Working with Mr. Lansing, the Board turned to the next 
matter at hand which was revitalizing and improving the various 
entities under the aegis of the Broadcasting Board of 
Governors. Quality attracts quality. With Mr. Lansing at the 
helm, we were then able to proceed with the hiring of other 
entity heads who you have heard from two of them--Amanda 
Bennett and Jamie Fly. It does not get better than this. You 
have heard their testimony. You have seen their bios. These are 
the best of the best in the journalistic world.
    We also hired Alberto Fernandez, a former Foreign Service 
colleague of mine, to run the Middle East Broadcasting Network. 
Alberto has near-perfect Arabic. Among other things, he was 
able to go on Arabic language talk shows and go head to head 
with powerful political adversaries. He could out-think them. 
He could out-talk them. And, when necessary, he could out-shout 
them in the defense of U.S. priorities and U.S. national 
security.
    So this about the people, the people who run these agencies 
and the people who do the frontline work as reporters, and Mr. 
Fly just described, graphically, the impact that these abrupt 
changes had on all of them.
    The other point I would make, Mr. Chairman and Mr. McCaul, 
is not just who was chosen but how they were chosen. In each 
case, this bipartisan board came together, Republicans and 
Democrats--I am on the Board as an Independent--for unanimous 
votes appointing again these Agency leaders.
    Now all of that is in jeopardy, as you have heard from my 
former colleagues. The firewall, in particular, is a sensitive 
issue and I am very worried that the cracks in the firewall are 
going to destroy the whole image of USAGM. And I would say in 
this context simply that I cannot say it any better than what 
William Harlan Hale said in that first VOA broadcast, February 
1942.
    Speaking in German and aiming to counter Nazi propaganda, 
he said, ``Here speaks a voice from America. Every day at this 
time, we will bring you the news of the war. The news may be 
good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.''
    Mr. Chairman, Mr. McCaul, that is what VOA and its sister 
agencies have done ever since. Our reputation for telling the 
truth has been a core element of our strength as a Nation. Now 
it is in danger putting at risk not only our national values, 
but also our national security. Thank you.
    [The written statement of Mr. Crocker follows:]

    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, it is an honor to 
appear before this Committee to discuss the roles and missions 
for the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
    These are critical times for our country in the 
International arena, and USAGM plays a critical role.
    I was privileged to serve on the Board of the Broadcasting 
Board of Governors (later USAGM) from 2013 to 2020. It was a 
bipartisan board, although my status is as an independent. This 
was a period in which the Board Chair was first a Democrat and 
then a Republican. It was also a period of historic change.
    Since its inception, the BBG had not had a CEO. Our board 
recognized this as a major structural flaw: One does not run an 
$800 million corporation with no CEO and a part time. After 
verifying that there were no legal barriers to the 
establishment of a CEO position by the Board, we engaged 
members of the Senate and House to explain the issue and seek 
support for creating and filling a CEO slot.
    We found broad bipartisan backing. After a rigorous search 
led by then Board Chairman Jeff Shell, we selected John 
Lansing, a career journalist of extraordinary ability and 
accomplishment. He is also an extraordinary manger. He reviewed 
the entire USAGM structure, identifying problems and proposing 
solutions. He dramatically improved coordination and 
cooperationamong the entities and agencies, eliminating 
redundancies and building a strong sense of common purpose that 
not only realized more efficient use of resources, but improved 
the quality of our output. Congress remained engaged on the 
issue, and passed legislation establishing a CEO position that 
would be nominated by the President and confirmed by the 
Senate.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, the most important 
asset USAGM has is the people who work for its cause, from 
reporters around the world who have the ability and courage to 
report the news accurately and honestly. In many cases, they do 
so at great personal risk of harassment, imprisonment, physical 
abuse and even death_all for telling the truth in an arena of 
totalitarianlies. This is at the core of the USAGM mission, and 
has been since the founding of VOA during the darker days of WW 
II It also means finding the very best people for senior 
positions whose values and abilities are consistent with that 
mission and who will inspire and lead their agencies and 
entities.
    That effort became easier with John Lansing at the helm. 
Admired and respected throughout the media, he in turn 
attracted the best and the brightest. It made our job as a 
Board considerably easier. I can say with a total lack of 
modesty that we fielded the A Team. Two of its members sit 
before you_Amanda Bennett who headed VOA and Jamie Fly, former 
CEO of RFE/RL. They can tell you their stories. Suffice it for 
me to say that you simply cannot find more capable and 
dedicated leaders. And it should not surprise you to know that 
they worked closely with each other. The best gravitate to the 
best.
    Among the leaders who are not here is Alberto Fernandez who 
headed theMiddle East Broadcasting Network_MBN. A former 
Foreign Service colleague. Alberto speaks nearly perfect 
Arabic. Good enough to go on Arabic language news programs 
where he would out think, out talk and when necessary out shout 
political adversaries in their own language. He also has 
themoral courage to shine light on the most sensitive issues in 
the region such as corruption.
    The same is true of Libby Liu and later Bay Fang as CEOs of 
Radio Free Asia. You will not find more informed and vociferous 
critics of the Chinese government anywhere. Libby also worked 
to establish the Overseas Technology Fund (OTF) with the 
mission of circumventing the efforts of autocratic regimes such 
as China to block the broadcast of the truth. Ambassador 
Kornbluh will bespeaking to that as Chairman of the OTF Board 
of Directors.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, I think it is very 
important to note not just who we selected for these critical 
positions, but how. These hiring decisions were made by 
unanimous votes of the Board.
    Democrats and Republicans came together to decide who could 
best serve USAGM and the nation. There were no partisan votes. 
This is a matter of great importance to me personally. As a 
Foreign Service officer, I served six times as an American 
Ambassador abroad. Three times I represented 
RepublicanAdministrations, and three times Democratic. I served 
the American people, not a political party.
    Even in this time of hyper-partisanship, the USAGM Board on 
which I was privileged to serve was able to maintain its focus 
on the national security interests of the United States and to 
act accordingly, getting the right people in the right places 
and insuring that the mission of the agency was properly and 
effectively implemented.
    That Board was dissolved in June, in accordance with the 
legislation establishing a Presidentially nominated and Senate 
confirmed CEO position. We expected this. What we did not 
expect was the wholesale firing of the agency and entity heads 
we had worked so hard to identify and recruit. Nor did we 
expect that the Agency's career executives would be dismissed 
or sidelined. CEO Pack's actions have demoralized Agency staff, 
most critically our reporters in the field. The firewall, which 
has been the guarantor of objective and honest reporting for 
more than 75 years, is under attack. We are in danger, I 
believe, of seeing USAGM transformed into precisely the 
propaganda mouthpiece we have so vigorously condemned in places 
like China and Russia.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, I cannot say it better 
than William Harlan Hale did in that first VOA broadcast in 
February 1942. Speaking in German and aiming to counter Nazi 
propaganda, he said this: "Here speaks a voice from America. 
Every day at this time, we will bring you the news ofthe war. 
The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you 
the truth." And that is what VOA and its sister agencies have 
done ever since. Our reputation for telling the truth has been 
a core element of our strength as a nation. Now it is in 
danger, putting at risk not only our national values but also 
our national security.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Ambassador. Thank you.
    I will now recognize members of the committee for 5 minutes 
each. Pursuant to the rules, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of questioning our witnesses. Because of the hybrid, 
virtual format of this hearing, I will recognize members by 
committee seniority, alternating between Democrats and 
Republicans. If you miss your turn, please let our staff know 
and we will come back to you. If you seek recognition, you must 
unmute your microphone and address the chair verbally. And as 
we start questioning, I will start by recognizing myself.
    Mr. Turner, at the beginning of your testimony, you made 
clear just how qualified and experienced you are. We are 
grateful for your years of service, and I presume for much of 
that time you have held a security clearance. Is that correct?
    Mr. Turner. That is correct, sir.
    Mr. Engel. Okay, thank you. Now your testimony made clear 
that following Mr. Pack's arrival when he began a pattern of 
improper and possibly illegal actions, you raised the alarm. 
Can you tell us a bit more specifically about who you notified 
and what their reactions were?
    Mr. Turner. You know, initially, I did not notify anyone 
outside of the Agency. You know, when a new agency head joins, 
you assume that they are going to change things. You assume 
that they want to get an understanding of the organization that 
they are heading. So, you know, my purpose was to assist Mr. 
Pack in doing that.
    He initially put in place a freeze on personnel actions, on 
contract actions, and technical or IT migrations, you know, 
which makes sense, you know, when you first take the seat to 
get a hold of an agency. You know, but then, you know, then a 
week goes by and 2 weeks goes by and 3 weeks goes by, and you 
start seeing that things are really just frozen and people are 
calling you saying things are breaking down.
    And I mentioned calls that I am getting from the grantees 
saying that, you know, ``Grant, if you do not send us funding, 
I am not going to be able to make payroll next week.'' This is 
the CFO of Radio Free Europe. I mean these are our partners in 
the broadcasting that we do internationally. They are key to 
the effectiveness of the Agency and starving them of resources 
and causing operational harm to them is not, you know, how we 
intend to get our job done.
    Probably about a month into Mr. Pack's tenure, seeing lots 
of financial mismanagement, hearing from VOA reporters in 
particular about firewall violations, and being pushed 1 day to 
potentially commit an Anti-deficiency Act violation--I 
apologize or take credit for the budget geeks in the room--I 
realized I had to notify someone and I contacted the financial 
counterpart that works with us in the State Department's Office 
of the Inspector General.
    I made a disclosure, you know, to them and basically kind 
of just, you know, laid out what I had been seeing. I also 
reached out to the Government Accountability Office because 
they were working on an active review of USAGM governance. And 
at the time, I spoke with our Senate Appropriations Committee, 
majority and minority at the same time, along with our 
excellent General Counsel David Kligerman.
    And we disclosed what we had been seeing, and I will say, 
you know, people were pretty shocked. Some of this has come out 
in the press and, you know, it is just kind of a sad state of 
affairs for me because I really like the Agency, the people 
there, and the mission, and it is sad to see it assailed like 
this.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you. Let me ask you this. Other than the 
fact that they did not follow your advice, did you have any 
reason to believe that CEO Pack or his close advisors were 
unhappy with you because of the concerns you had raised about 
financial mismanagement at the Agency?
    Mr. Turner. Yes. I think, you know, I have raised these 
tough issues with them, you know, I said, we cannot, you know, 
starve our organizations of resources, you know, we have to 
provide them funding. They are almost a hundred percent funded 
by the American taxpayer.
    You know, I have raised issues that we cannot lose 
important tools such as those that are provided by our Open 
Technology Fund grantee. I told them, you know, we cannot just 
move money around willy nilly and they wanted to do some of 
that. At one point, they called back, without my awareness, 
about three and a half million dollars from our grantees.
    You know, without the CFO knowing, without our Grants 
Office being involved, without a grant agreement or amendment 
being executed, outside of all of our internal controls, 
calling up the grantees or sending them an email at 4 p.m. and 
saying, give us 500,000 by 5 p.m., you know, this is ridiculous 
kind of stuff. So, you know, we are having paper checks 
delivered to us, you know, for three and a half million dollars 
over the next couple of days.
    And I am saying, this is going to come back to haunt us, we 
cannot do this. And I know that that did not endear me to Mr. 
Pack or the team that he had assembled around him. So I think 
there were lots of reasons.
    Mr. Engel. Let me ask you some, rapidly, some easy 
questions to answer. Did any of these communications meetings 
occur on or about August 12th?
    Mr. Turner. You know, Mr. Pack basically did not 
communicate with me for much of his tenure and I ended up 
communicating largely with his leadership team. You know, I 
sent him probably three, you know, emails on important things 
in his first week on the job and he, you know, did not reply to 
any of them. And, you know, I got the message that I should 
work through the other folks around him.
    The first time I met with him was about 2 weeks before I 
was removed from my position and I met with him on two 
different occasions that week fairly close to the August 12th 
date that I was removed. And, certainly, you know, there were 
some pointed exchanges, you know, shortly before he decided to 
remove me.
    Mr. Engel. When you were removed were six other senior 
officials placed on leave at the same time?
    Mr. Turner. That is correct.
    Mr. Engel. Do you know if any of the others who were 
suspended offered counsel to that effect?
    Mr. Turner. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Engel. Yes.
    Mr. Turner. Could you repeat that question?
    Mr. Engel. Oh, I am sorry. It was--do you know if any of 
the others who were suspended offered counsel to that effect?
    Mr. Turner. I think everyone was kind of summarily 
dismissed. You know, they sort of pulled our security 
clearances, you know, for everyone, and said because you do not 
have a clearance now and your job requires you to have a 
clearance, you cannot be in your job.
    So it was a pretty quick thing. I might liken it a little 
bit to, you know, what we call our ``Wednesday Night 
Massacre,'' which was Mr. Pack's first physical day in the 
office when he sort of decapitated all of our network 
organizations by firing their leadership and their boards, you 
know, without any replacements, you know, just removing them.
    And I think the six of us were removed because, you know, 
we are sort of, you know, the folks who are following the regs 
and the rules and making sure that, you know, we are in 
compliance of what this institution asks of us, what the 
Administration and OMB asks of us, and I think that was getting 
in their way.
    Mr. Engel. Has Mr. Pack scheduled any administrative 
proceedings related to your suspension and, if so, when are 
those scheduled for?
    Mr. Turner. Yes, sir. He did. The administrative hearings 
were scheduled for today at the time of this committee hearing.
    Mr. Engel. And when did you learn about those proceedings?
    Mr. Turner. It is within the past week.
    Mr. Engel. Do you believe that your suspension was, in 
fact, retaliatory in nature?
    Mr. Turner. Yes, I am pretty sure that it is. It sure feels 
like it. You know, I have been a civil servant who has worked 
hard for, you know, both sides of the aisle in Administrations 
run by Republicans and Democrats, and, you know, I was here to 
help Mr. Pack. I think he would have had a better chance at 
achieving some success.
    I do not think he has a strategy, but it certainly feels 
retaliatory to me and it is my view that that is the case with 
the others that were removed as well.
    Mr. Engel. Well, it is my view too. I think it was 
retaliatory. I think you did your job, tried to keep the 
Agency's leadership on the straight and narrow, and told your 
superiors things they did not want to hear including that they 
might be breaking the law. So now they are trying to fire you, 
I think it is outrageous.
    So, Mr. Turner, I want to thank you. It takes a lot of 
courage to do what you are doing today. You are a public 
servant in the truest sense of the term. If it were not for 
people like you, our government agencies would not function 
properly, they would just crumble, and the gross mismanagement, 
people all over the world, really, would wonder why we were not 
fulfilling our commitments. And if it were not for people like 
you, the truth would never come to light when people in power 
abuse that power and think that the rules do not apply to them. 
So I salute you and I can assure you, this committee is going 
to have your back.
    Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Engel. I yield back and recognize the ranking member, 
Mr. McCaul, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McCaul. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I would like to, first, before I begin my questions, enter 
into the record a letter to the Honorable Michael Pack, on July 
1st, 2020, signed by several United States Senators including 
Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins.
    Mr. Engel. Without objection, so ordered.
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    Mr. McCaul. I would also like to enter into the record a 
joint statement with myself and Senator Marsha Blackburn, on 
August 18th, expressing our extreme concerns by the state of 
affairs at USAGM.
    Mr. Engel. Without objection.
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    Mr. McCaul. Thank you.
    You know, I have been heading this China Task Force up for 
the last 6 months. Voice of America took our ``Origins of 
COVID-19'' report, which was almost like an indictment of the 
Chinese Communist Party and the cover-up that took place, all 
based on truth. We translated that into Mandarin. We got it 
through into mainland China and the report went viral because 
the people of China need to know the truth about their 
government. This is a great example of what USAGM can do and 
how we can penetrate through their firewalls to talk to the 
people directly.
    It got the attention of President Xi's spokesman. There was 
an hour-long CGTN, their propaganda television show, an hour-
long special debunking the ``McCaul Report.'' I mean, I find 
that this is one of the most valuable things we have in the 
State Department to talk directly to the people in China who 
are oppressed every day. Talk to the people in Iran who are 
oppressed every day, people in Russia, in North Korea; so I see 
great value in this and I do not want to see it destroyed or 
reduced by 80 percent because $20 million that Congress 
appropriated has essentially been impounded.
    So my question is this, and I look, you know, Ambassador 
Crocker, I have no greater respect for any Ambassador more than 
him, who served in, you know, Lebanon during the Marines 
bombing in Beirut to the serving in--last Ambassador from 
Syria, Pakistan, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. My god. I mean 
it always asks me the question, what did I do wrong?
    But he has done such a great job serving the United States 
of America in these outposts and nobody knows this better than 
he does. So I would like to pose my question, actually, to you, 
Mr. Turner, but also if I could give Ambassador Crocker and 
Ambassador Kornbluh some time to talk about what impact of the 
actions of Mr. Pack and this purging and also, basically, I 
would say borderline actions, or actions in defiance of 
congressional intent in appropriations, what impact is that 
having on our foreign policy?
    I do not think the top of the State Department, I wonder, 
and I would urge Secretary Pompeo to take a look at what is 
going on within his own Department. This undermines the very 
things we are trying to achieve. The very goals that Secretary 
Pompeo and I have talked about, I believe these actions 
undermine that.
    And, finally, Ambassador Crocker, you say our reputation 
for telling the truth has been a core element of our strength 
as a Nation. Now it is in danger of putting at risk not only 
our national values but also our national security. Ambassador 
Crocker, I put great value in those words from probably the 
most esteemed Ambassador the United States has ever had. So 
with that, Ambassador Crocker, I would like for you and 
Ambassador Kornbluh to respond to that.
    And then, Mr. Turner, since you are here in person it would 
be nice to have your response.
    Mr. Crocker. Thank you very much, Mr. McCaul, and thank you 
for those kind words. I would stress again here that I am 
politically an independent. That is a status that I assiduously 
protected during my years in the Foreign Service and I continue 
to do so.
    I would say this. I was an ambassador to six countries in 
my career. I served Republican Administrations for three of 
those terms and Democratic Administrations through the other 
three. I do say with a total lack of modesty that I think I 
have a pretty good feel for what works and what does not, what 
is right and what is not. What we got right were the right 
people in the right places and we did this by unanimous 
bipartisan board votes.
    Bipartisanship is in increasingly short supply and I 
commend you, Mr. Chairman, and you, Mr. McCaul, for keeping 
that spirit alive in this critical committee. It is about 
telling the truth. It is not about disseminating propaganda. 
That is what our adversaries do in Russia and China.
    Since 1942, our national reputation has been reinforced by 
the activities and the reporting of the USAGM grantees and 
entities. It started from day one, as I said in my statement. 
When we deviate from that we are putting at risk our leadership 
role in the world. We are effectively in the minds of so many.
    Mr. McCaul, you referred to your superb China report. Our 
strength vis-a-vis the Chinese Government is that we do tell 
the truth. That when a report like this is produced and when 
VOA and others broadcast it, our listeners around the world pay 
attention because of our reputation for truth. When you take 
that away we become like our adversaries. Not better than them, 
simply doing what they do. People figure that out.
    Damage has been done. I think there is no question about 
that. Our legitimacy, our reputation for candor, our reputation 
for truth has already been significantly undermined. And when 
that happens, the rest of our foreign policy initiatives are 
undermined. People are not stupid. They know what they are 
hearing. They know what the truth sounds like. They know who 
tells it. That was axiomatic until June with these mass 
firings.
    And I would say, if I could just echo what you have already 
said, Mr. Chairman and Mr. McCaul, it was not just us on the 
boards who were dismissed. It was also the case of some very, 
very top-notch senior executives as Mr. Turner represents, the 
best in the business. The best in the business at what they do 
with a complete understanding of what the firewall is and how 
it is important.
    In all of this mess we have had since June, one of the 
things I regret the most is how these individuals were treated. 
And I am very happy to hear that the committee will stand by 
these brave individuals you do not get better in Civil Service, 
just as you do not get a better set of entity heads than we had 
with Ms. Bennett, Mr. Fly, and their colleagues.
    And, finally, on China, if I could just say a word. Two 
other people that deserve mention and deserve praise for what 
they did, that would be Libby Liu and Bay Fang. Libby, of 
course, headed Radio Free Asia before she stepped up to direct 
the team, OTF, the team we established, and they then replaced 
her at RFA.
    If you want people who can dip into the minds of the regime 
in China to--which makes them feel that they are coming under 
fire for their lies they tell their own people, you do not find 
better people than Libby and Bay to send that message. So I 
would, as a former career Foreign Service Officer, I just want 
to salute the extraordinary quality of career people as well as 
other appointments who have carried the message of America 
abroad for so long. It pains me greatly to see us move into an 
era where that may no longer be the case. Thank you.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Ambassador, and thank you for your 
service. And now that my time is expired, I would just ask that 
the witnesses, all of the witnesses appearing before the 
committee today respond to my question in writing.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields 
back.
    Mr. Sherman.
    Mr. Sherman. Our communications efforts illustrate for the 
world our democracy and the rule of law. That can work only if 
lawmakers are able to do their job. Mr. Pack's refusal to be 
here demonstrates to the many who depend upon our 
communications efforts that at least in that instance our 
democracy is not working well.
    But this hearing illustrates also the opposite. This is--we 
have issued a bipartisan subpoena for Mr. Pack, and I, without 
objection, would like to enter into the record Mr. McCaul's 
statement on this issue and the need for a subpoena.
    Mr. Engel. Without objection.
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    Mr. Sherman. And I think then that this instance can help 
us demonstrate to the world that the rule of law does work here 
and that it is important for this committee to make sure this 
matter does not drop; that there are consequences for Mr. Pack 
no matter which Administration takes office in January.
    I am a bit confused as to Mr. Pack's mission. I thought at 
first it might just be megalomania, desire to replace one 
person with another person to show he can. Then I thought it 
might be some extreme libertarian budget-cutting. But the soft 
power of the United States costs almost nothing compared to our 
military forces and does not endanger our servicemen and women.
    And then we discovered that one ideological issue and 
that--and I have focused as the committee knows on our 
broadcasting and other communications efforts to Pakistan. I 
have urged that we have a Sindh service as well as one in Urdu. 
And in the Urdu service they covered for a couple of minutes an 
appeal by Biden to American Muslim voters, which at some point 
should be balanced by a demonstration that both parties want 
the votes of every group of Americans and that Muslims and all 
the communities of the United States are a treasured part of 
the mosaic of the United States.
    As one witness pointed out, our broadcasting and other 
efforts represents government-funded, independent journalism. 
That is a tricky thing to do. And that is why we prohibit these 
organizations from communicating with the American people 
because there could be some effect on our elections. Now it is 
possible that some American voter saw this little clip of Biden 
saying that Democrats want Muslim votes. And it is possible 
that the Urdu service has not yet communicated that Republicans 
want Muslim votes.
    But clearly, we are all in the politics business here. We 
all communicate with different ethnic groups. You could 
certainly influence more American Muslim voters with a thousand 
dollars spent on media that actually reaches Americans than you 
could with some obscure--with all due respect, not a lot of 
Americans are focused on just a minute or two broadcast of Urdu 
service.
    What particularly concerns me though is the J-1 visas. We 
bring people here. We ask them to be honest and to speak truth 
to countries where speaking truth can get you killed or at 
least imprisoned. Then Mr. Pack denies the application, refuses 
to file the application to extend their J-1 visas which means 
they are subject to deportation to the very place that we asked 
them to tell truth to a country where truth is illegal.
    I would like any of the witnesses, but particularly Mr. 
Turner, to comment. Are lives in danger because of Mr. Pack's 
efforts? Or is the freedom of these journalists in danger if 
they get deported?
    Mr. Turner. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I think that is 
one of the biggest worries of the people that have been removed 
and the folks that are appearing at this hearing today is the 
fate of these J-1 visa holders. You know, they are a very, very 
specialized expertise that we----
    Mr. Sherman. And if--we see them here in the hallways.
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Mr. Sherman. When American journalists are not interested 
in some hearing of this committee, they may be the only 
journalists.
    Mr. Turner. Correct.
    Mr. Sherman. And they are asking questions. And they are 
saying things that might get them in trouble if they were back 
in their home countries.
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Mr. Sherman. And Mr. Pack wants to send them there?
    Mr. Turner. It could be quite dangerous for many of them. 
Obviously, in certain countries--Russia, Iran, Vietnam, China, 
many places around the world--the broadcasting that they are 
doing for the United States is not welcome. You know, they want 
to close off their media markets from the truth.
    You know, these people are very passionate people, you 
know, they come from these countries and they often want to 
drive change in their countries. You know, they want, you know, 
American values to go to their communities, you know, respect 
for human dignity, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. And 
that is why they are, you know, walking around the halls 
sometimes when other folks, you know, have given up. They 
really care.
    They are difficult to recruit because it is hard to find, 
you know, a great reporter in some of these really, you know, 
specific languages, you know, whether it is Urdu, as you 
mentioned, or if we are recruiting a Sindhi journalist or a 
Macedonian, you know, they come from the countries. They have a 
real tactile feel for the communities and the people.
    Mr. Sherman. And Uncle Sam brings them here, uses them to 
communicate our message back to their home countries, and then 
deports them to the loving arms to the very dictators who are 
so opposed to truth that we thought it was necessary to 
broadcast into their country.
    I believe my time is expired. I yield back. But that is a 
crime.
    Mr. Turner. Yes, thank you for the question. You know, the 
harassment, the potential imprisonment, even worse, I think, 
are at risk for some of our journalists if they return.
    Mr. Sherman. We ought to be granting asylum, and I yield 
back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you.
    Mr. Curtis.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to 
express my appreciation to you and the Ranking Member McCaul 
for holding this hearing. I would like to express my 
appreciation for your leadership to the two of you particularly 
in your introduction of the Open Technology Fund Authorization 
Act. It was my real pleasure to be the Republican co-lead on 
that bill.
    The Open Technology Fund is a vital part of helping 
journalists and democracy activists around the world. I think 
of China's firewall and how important it is in that role. I 
think of Iran and when it was used last January to restore the 
internet when hundreds of protestors had been killed, how 
incredibly important it is in that role.
    And as I am listening to this hearing, trying to not place 
nefarious motives on Mr. Pack, I wish he was here to defend 
himself because in his absence we are left to speculate as to 
his motives and they just do not sound good, and I hope 
eventually we will understand what those are.
    Mr. McCaul has talked about the role of the OTF in China. I 
would like to point out two other regions of the world and ask 
some specific questions. Perhaps, Ambassador Kornbluh, you can 
help me. In Belarus has there been a role of the OTF and, if 
so, how has it impacted that and what obstacles are we 
encountering in Belarus?
    Ms. Kornbluh. Thank you very much for your question. I did 
want to start, first, by echoing what my colleague, Ambassador 
Crocker, said about the importance and the professionalism and 
expertise of the people, leaders that we recruited, and call 
out OTF's leadership including Laura Cunningham. She and her 
team are working under incredible pressure and I just admire 
their work very much.
    On Belarus, specifically, OTF has supported internet 
freedom projects for Belarus for over 5 years. Unfortunately, 
due to the funding freeze, OTF has been forced to issue stop 
work orders to all of its Belarus projects. Prior to the stop 
work orders, OTF has been supporting the most popular anti-
censorship and secure communications tools in Belarus including 
Psiphon, Tor, and Signal.
    And OTF also provided digital security support to Belarus 
civil society groups. It funded secure hosting and cyber-attack 
mitigation platforms for Belarusian civil society. It developed 
peer-to-peer solutions to combat internet blackouts. And it 
funded cutting-edge net monitoring tools to better understand 
and ultimately overcome censorship in Belarus.
    This shows you the multipronged approach that OTF takes 
both focusing on funding the technology and empowering the 
people and protecting them. Despite ongoing funding challenges, 
OTF has continued to try to find ways to support journalists 
and civil society in Belarus during this critical time. For 
example, after the Belarusian Government announced that it had 
blocked all RFE/RL websites, OTF worked quickly to spin up 
several mirror sites so that Belarusians could continue to 
access RFE/RL's website.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you. It would be hard to imagine a better 
dollar-for-dollar investment for the results in these cases 
that we have mentioned and in Belarus.
    Quickly, before I run out of time, Mr. Fly, would you speak 
to the Radio Free Europe, the role that Radio Free Europe plays 
particularly combating Russian aggression in Europe?
    Mr. Fly. RFE/RL plays an essential role. We were just 
discussing Belarus where RFE/RL has a Belarusian language 
service, Radio Svaboda, which over decades has provided hope 
and inspiration to the Belarusian people, and in moments like 
this when the people are taking their future into their own 
hands, has played a key role trying to share information 
between the people about what is going on in the streets, about 
what the government is doing about the crackdown, revealing the 
truth about the crackdown.
    And as Ambassador Kornbluh said, networks like RFE as part 
of the USAGM family rely on entities like OTF to help 
circumvent a lot of the restrictions that governments impose on 
our broadcasts or our distribution. Beyond Belarus, another key 
role that RFE/RL plays is inside Russia itself where it has a 
Russian service, a 24/7 Russian TV network, Current Time, in 
cooperation with Voice of America, and has been doing 
increasingly important digital work reaching a younger 
generation of Russians.
    And in response to that, the Russian Government has been 
cracking down, declaring RFE/RL a foreign agent, trying to 
force its journalists out of the country. Despite that, they 
continue operating out of a relatively large bureau in Moscow 
putting themselves and their families covering a wide range of 
issues from the pandemic to politics. And through all of these 
services in Russia and outside, we are pushing back against 
Russian efforts to control the information space.
    Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Fly and the rest of the 
witnesses. I am out of time. I yield the balance of my time.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Curtis.
    Mr. Sires.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing.
    And thank you to the witnesses for being here. And, Mr. 
Turner, thank you for your strength and your courage to come 
before this committee.
    And, Mr.--my friend, there, Michael Pack, you know, this 
committee works on a bipartisan basis. We fund you on a 
bipartisan basis. All the people that you see around this room 
here that have their portraits here all supported the efforts 
of that Agency. And here you have this hack coming in and 
destroying some of the most important things that America can 
do.
    I came from a country that is very repressive. I came from 
Cuba. I know what repression is. I know what repression of the 
press is. I know what stories are that make it to the front 
page. I have been called a member of the mafia along with Mario 
Diaz-Balart, with Senator Menendez, in the front page of the 
Cuban paper. We need to combat that. And the Agency that does 
that is this, the Voice of America and the people that work 
there.
    So when you have somebody like this who Senator Menendez 
questioned his confirmation from the very beginning that he was 
not--it was someone who had questionable qualifications to head 
this Agency, who is under investigation by the IRS, it makes 
you wonder how these people get confirmed to lead an agency so 
important as this one. Someone who is endangering people, these 
journalists who are so courageous in this country, because if 
these people have to go back to their countries you know that 
they are going to be harassed, put in jail, or killed.
    So I am very concerned about the direction that this Agency 
is going. As chairman of the Western Hemisphere, I am concerned 
about what is going on in Venezuela, this information there, 
what is going on in Nicaragua. He is shutting down the 
newspapers. He is shutting down the independent journalists. 
And we are the only buffer. We are the only people that can get 
the truth to those who live in those countries, and that is 
just two of the countries. Not to talk about Russia or Belarus 
and all the other places that we have.
    So I find it a little bit conspicuous that one of the 
things that seems to be happening is that we are destroying our 
efforts to go into Russia and tell the truth to the Russian 
people because of the chummy-chummy relationship that our 
President has with Putin. I wonder what goes on in those 
conversations where we do not get a transcript of. Is this a 
result of that?
    Mr. Turner. I know people are very concerned about the 
politicization, you know, of the Agency and I know that is a 
primary concern of this committee. As you point out, the value 
is in the truth and getting that information out there. I 
think, you know, Mr. Pack has just forced the Agency to 
stagnate and, you know, stagnation and decline may be a bit of 
its future.
    You mentioned Cuba. In 2018, this is a country with the 
highest growth in internet access in the world. They started 
from a very low base.
    Mr. Sires. And we worked very hard to get there.
    Mr. Turner. Yes. And there are opportunities now as there 
are in China, as there are in other markets around the world. 
And this team does not seem to be focused on a strategy. It 
does not seem to focused on how to get the best bang for our 
buck, you know, to look at our audiences and the platforms and 
how to engage the world with truthful information and 
information about our policies.
    And I think that is one of the biggest downsides right now. 
In addition to the loss of credibility is we are losing time in 
a critical moment.
    Mr. Sires. You know, one of the things that bothers me is 
how people could ignore a subpoena from a committee. To me that 
bothers me to no end because there should be some consequences 
for these people who do not want to answer of their actions 
that they are committing in the work that they do when we fund 
them. It is the taxpayers' money and we are entitled to know 
where that money goes and why they make the decisions that they 
make.
    So to me, we have to change this idea that people just can 
ignore a subpoena from a committee. My time is running out, but 
I thank you for your courage in coming here.
    Mr. Turner. Thank you, Congressman.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Sires.
    Mr. Perry.
    Mr. Perry. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I will tell you, I would not know Mr. Pack if he was 
standing right in front of me and this seems like a pretty 
substantial hit job on him and his actions and et cetera, et 
cetera. But I want to point out some things that apparently are 
not going to be pointed out by anybody else here.
    Last June, a former chief strategy officer for the Agency 
working closely with the former CEO of USAGM went to prison for 
stealing nearly $40,000 during his tenure. In 2018, a reporter 
and a cameraman faked a mortar attack in Nicaragua. Well, that 
is interesting reporting. In the fall of 2018, the Voice of 
America fired 15 of its employees after discovering they were 
accepting bribes from a--or, correction--a Nigerian official. 
Wonderful.
    The Hoover Institution released a report citing concerns on 
China's influence on American institutions including China's 
charm offensive on agencies like the VOA and the CCP's 
proclivity to otherwise threaten VOA reporters and their 
families. Boy, I bet we love to hear that is going on. In late 
2018, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, this very committee, 
this committee with these people on it, said the USAGM was a 
broken agency.
    But I guess, according to what we are hearing today, we 
should just let it go, just let it continue. Former Secretary 
Clinton described USAGM as ``practically defunct'' in its 
capacity to tell a message around the world. I am glad we are 
paying for that. When Mr. Pack went to investigate the Open 
Technology Fund at their DC location, his employees found 
laptops and hard drives left unsecured in boxes. An internal 
door connecting the Open Technology Fund organization with 
other entities in the building complex was not only unlocked, 
it was wide open.
    I suspect the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and 
North Koreans, none of them have any interest in finding out 
what might be in those computers. China, Russia, and other 
adversaries are constantly trying to hack U.S. agencies. This 
discovery was not a great look for the OTF. Apparently, OTF has 
also been holding meetings on Zoom calls. Well, that sounds 
pretty secure to me as an individual who has been privileged 
and honored to hold a top-secret security clearance for about 
35 years in the U.S. military.
    Mr. Chairman, I want to enter for the record a letter from 
Mr. Pack to you where he says that his staff proposed 8 days 
within the month of September when they could appear. If you 
would, sir.
    Mr. Engel. Without objection, so ordered.
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    Mr. Perry. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Chairman, this committee respects the importance of 
media independence, media freedom as absolutely essential to 
any functioning civil society and we are aware and familiar 
with the firewall put in place to protect journalists working 
at USAGM and its subdivisions from political interference. We 
all support such protections for our journalists and reporters.
    Highlighting some of the issues will shed light as to why 
Mr. Pack was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to his current role 
and the charge that is now before him to reform the Agency. 
Let's start out with a newly released report from the Office of 
Personnel and Management detailing USAGM's poor vetting 
practices for its employees. Fifteen hundred--1,500 USAGM 
employees and contractors between 2010 and 2020--that is right 
now in case anybody is wondering--40 percent of the Agency's 
work force were not properly vetted before being hired.
    Well, I do not know. Who should Mr. Pack look toward that 
for accountability there? Should he look toward us sitting up 
here? I do not know. I would think it would be the people 
running the Agency. According to Real Clear Politics, the 
Agency cleared hundreds of employees and contractors to work 
for the U.S. Government, many from authoritarian nations the 
U.S. considers adversaries. These unvetted employees maintained 
access to USAGM broadcasting platforms and tools, government 
buildings, IT systems, and senior government officials.
    Oh, I wonder why this Agency is incompetent and ineffective 
and inept. I wonder why. I have no idea. The reforms undertaken 
by Mr. Pack have undergone a significant amount of public 
scrutiny as they should, but USAGM's poor vetting procedures 
over those last decades continue to threaten U.S. national 
security and it is entirely the fault of those who mismanaged 
the process, whoever that is.
    Both USAGM and the State Department employees have said 
that OTF's budget can be broken down into two parts, 
approximately 25 percent of it spent on technology tools that 
facilitate its missions to break through barriers of 
authoritarian technology control--25 percent. And I will 
conclude, Mr. Chairman, the other 75 percent is dedicated to 
extravagant conferences at popular resort spots, extremely 
generous salaries, benefits, and redundant projects already 
being undertaken at other agencies.
    I do not know what is going on here, but I am not ready to 
blame Mr. Pack for everything. He should be allowed to come in 
here and we should work collaboratively instead of the road 
show and the circus that is going on right now in this 
committee. And I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Perry.
    Let me just say that Mr. Pack had every opportunity to be 
here today to defend himself and his actions. He is the one who 
chose not to come and to ignore this committee. And in terms of 
the dates that he proposed to come to us and you said we did 
not accept it, those proposed dates were in October when the 
House is in recess.
    So it made no sense for him to come when the House is in 
recess. He could have come today and defended himself and he 
could have given us some dates. We would have been happy to 
accommodate him.
    Mr. Connolly.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, there is a 
fallacy in the logic of my friend who just spoke in positing 
that there are a series of problems over the last ten or 20 
years and that is why we had to have a total purge and the 
dismantlement of programs that are, in fact, effective, reach 
audiences, and propound a democratic point of view in 
authoritarian societies.
    That is false logic. If there are problems you clean them 
up. You do not dismantle and purge the organization and that is 
what we are talking about. And if the actions Mr. Perry says 
are justifiable, if they are justifiable, then I would assume 
Mr. Pack would run, not walk, to this hearing to propound his 
philosophy and defend his actions and it is final. His absence 
speaks volumes about the fact that he, A, does not believe, 
apparently, in his own personal accountability while justifying 
his purges as an act of accountability for others, and he 
apparently does not have the confidences on actions and so-
called reform to come before the committee and justify them.
    Ms. Kornbluh, I was really bowled over by your testimony 
because you enumerated the actual consequences of the actions 
undertaken by Mr. Pack on a wide swath of the world in terms of 
programs. Is it your view that while painful, what Mr. Pack is 
doing is just cleaning up problems that were ignored by 
predecessors, and is it your view that apparently my friend 
from Pennsylvania wants us to believe that the organization is 
just replete with people who are partying on the taxpayer dime 
and, you know, being callous about their computers and, 
frankly, being ineffectual in their work?
    Is that a fair characterization, in your view, of the 
organization whose board you chaired?
    Ms. Kornbluh. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to 
respond. It is hard not to be emotional about this because the 
team at OTF, it is a small team. There are ten people. They 
have voluntarily taken a pay cut under the financial pressure 
that the Agency is in because they care so much about the 
mission and vulnerable journalists and human rights activists 
and ordinary people around the world who are using their tools 
and services.
    I would love to be able to submit for the record fuller 
responses but, needless to say, I believe the Congressman has 
been misinformed. The security claims are just not true. We do 
not leave information on hard drives. We do not use Zoom. 
Ninety percent of the funding is used for programming, for 
technology. There are no two million dollars in conferences. I 
think that must be a problem with somebody reading some 
numbers.
    In the past we have spent 200,000 on bringing together 
civil society groups, but nothing like two million. In light of 
the epidemic, of course, we have not been bringing people 
together at all. So those claims are, unfortunately, not true.
    Mr. Connolly. So wait a minute. I want to get this 
straight. So you all did not spend two million dollars on 
Donald Trump-owned properties like Mar-a-Lago or, you know, 
that was the Secret Service. Sorry. Maybe my friend got that 
mixed up.
    Ms. Kornbluh. Thank you.
    Mr. Connolly. Can I just ask a question here----
    Ms. Kornbluh. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly [continuing]. Because my time is going to run 
out.
    But again, going back to your testimony which was so 
compelling in terms of the damage being done here, the 
opportunity costs we are incurring, and it is a self-inflicted 
incurrence, you know, in criminal law one of the questions 
always asked when investigators are looking at crime is ``cui 
bono?'' Who benefits?
    When we look at what Mr. Pack has done to this 
organization, who benefits? It seems to me, deliberate or 
otherwise, Mr. Pack is handing a gift to the Chinese, to the 
Russians, to the Iranians, and the Venezuelans. But maybe that 
is just me. What do you think?
    Ms. Kornbluh. I think, unfortunately, that the actions 
taken against the Open Technology Fund strengthen America's 
adversaries and competitors. It threatens authoritarians around 
the world by weakening a key element of American soft power.
    Mr. Connolly. I want to give Ms. Bennett or Mr. Fly an 
opportunity to respond as well, if I have time, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Engel. Well, you do not. But we will--if they speed it 
up, we will let them get a few words in.
    Mr. Connolly. I am sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your 
graciousness.
    Mr. Turner. I am happy to give a quick response to some of 
the things that Congressman Perry brought up. It is true we had 
a chief strategy officer a couple years ago who was faking 
travel. We fired him. I signed that letter. You know, we do not 
put up with that.
    There was questions about a mortar attack and how a video 
was edited at Office of Cuba Broadcasting. They have been 
investigating it and proposing those people, two people, for 
removal because they care about their credibility. The 
Nigerian, it was our Hausa staff. Someone left envelopes, a 
dignitary who came to visit, and, you know, we cannot have the 
appearance that there is, you know, any influence on the 
journalism. So VOA removed those people.
    OTF does not have hard drives. They are a cloud-based 
system. I do not know what was seen on the floors when they 
went into the office. They have not been operating there. They 
have been mostly working from home because of the pandemic. I 
have not used Zoom with them. Jitsi is a product that they 
funded, which is secure, and they use that tool.
    As far as the OPM report, you know, they dinged us for a 
lot of administrative things and we have been trying to resolve 
those. There were 37 items in the report that they delivered. 
We have addressed more than half of those. There was no 
recommendation that we should remove people from their jobs 
because, you know, there was not an MOU in place, which is the 
reason that, you know, that they pointed to.
    Ultimately, we are not a national security agency. Mr. Pack 
is making it seem like national security is at risk here. If 
you are a VOA journalist and sit down at your desk, you cannot 
log into any national security data base. It is a building full 
of journalists. Our grantees are buildings full of journalists 
who are running down stories by talking to Congressmen like 
yourselves, newsmakers.
    So I think it is really just sort of pretext and a good 
cover for taking some, you know, abhorrent actions.
    Mr. Engel. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Burchett.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you all for being here. I would like to deviate 
from the current conversation and talk a little bit about 
Belarus.
    Mr. Turner, while you were CFO, did you review any proposed 
plan for Radio Free Europe to surge its broadcasts and increase 
support for free Belarus in light of the present protests that 
have erupted there?
    Mr. Turner. I do not recall that specifically. Obviously, 
that is an important country in Radio Free Europe's portfolio. 
You know, we give wide discretion in terms of the use of 
budgetary resources to our grantees, so Jamie Fly as the leader 
of that organization really has the say over where is the money 
best spent. So I would defer to him on maybe specific questions 
about Belarus and Radio Svaboda.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. Well, let me just ask you this then. If 
something like that were to happen, walk me through the process 
to where there would be that ramp-up, so to speak, and what is 
the ultimate goal? You know, oddly enough, the first time--I 
remember hearing about Radio Free Europe my whole life, and 
then in college this little band out of Georgia called R.E.M. 
was playing on the Cumberland Avenue strip----
    Mr. Turner. Good one.
    Mr. Burchett [continuing]. And came out with the song 
``Radio Free Europe'' and we all thought it was cool, but we 
never really understood what it was about. But I see several 
people in the audience nodding that they were, in fact, their 
age group is in mine, so that is cool. But I would like to know 
that process if you would just--it is not even in my notes. It 
just came to me.
    Mr. Turner. Sure.
    Mr. Burchett. I am just curious at how that whole thing 
works. And what is the goal? I mean do you get on there and 
just pro, you know, pro-freedom, pro-what, and then how does it 
work? How do you get the people to listen, first of all?
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Mr. Burchett. You know.
    Mr. Turner. You know it is amazing, just sort of, you know, 
the power of truth. The ranking member talked about China and 
the start of the pandemic, and we saw our numbers in China 
shoot up tremendously after the coronavirus broke out because 
people in Wuhan are looking around and they know something bad 
is happening and their government is not telling them what it 
is, so they were flocking to Radio Free Asia.
    They are flocking to VOA to find that truthful information. 
We saw that in Iran when protests broke out this summer over 
the kind of dire economic straits there. We saw it after the 
killing of General Soleimani where our numbers shoot up. When 
there are cases where we really want to try to surge into an 
area and, you know, increase maybe the number of frequencies 
that we are broadcasting on or add additional hours of 
television or radio, which is mostly staff time, you know, it 
is mostly, you know, people in studios and cameras that are 
involved in this, we kind of, you know, circle the wagons and 
pull together the funding in order to provide that surge.
    We keep approximately 1 percent of our $800 million budget 
as sort of an emergency fund and, you know, if we get through 
the year without an enormous crisis that we need to tap into 
it, then it gets spent on the normal things that we do. It is 
around eight million dollars. So we would have a discussion, 
first of all, with the head of Radio Free Europe, so in this 
case we would have discussed this with Jamie Fly. And if he 
needed resources, we would dispatch that to him. It is really 
up to him as to how he wants to deploy that.
    Is it more people on the ground? Do we need technology 
support from OTF? In many places around the globe, OTF quietly 
is providing support to protestors, so the Hong Kong protestors 
are protecting their identities from surveillance by OTF tools. 
Protestors in Iran, we have seen it in Beirut, around the world 
people are using these tools to protect themselves. So we would 
surge funds on technology and also to the broadcasting 
operations.
    Mr. Burchett. How do you know who all is watching it? I 
mean how do you--what are your ratings? How does that work?
    Mr. Turner. You know, some tools, some information is 
easier. On digital and social media, we often get metrics from 
the platform. So on whether if it is YouTube or Facebook or 
Twitter, Instagram, or a particular platform that might be 
specific to a country, we often can get that digital 
information. Other times, we actually use surveys. Gallup is 
one of our biggest providers.
    And sometimes it seems strange, but we have----
    Mr. Burchett. Gallup can trace that like----
    Mr. Turner [continuing]. Gallup polls in Iran and they 
will----
    Mr. Burchett. When Congressman McCaul put that deal out on 
China, I mean I heard a lot about that.
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Mr. Burchett. And that was like, I guess, if he were to 
walk the streets of China, he probably could not walk the 
streets. They would probably all be asking for his autographs, 
but.
    Mr. Turner. Yes. It is the power of the truth. You know, a 
report like that comes out----
    Mr. Burchett. Yes.
    Mr. Turner [continuing]. And obviously it elicits a strong 
reaction, you know, from the CCP because, you know, they fear 
that kind of truth. And, you know, the information that we 
provide is just unvarnished truth of the highest journalistic, 
you know, quality.
    Mr. Burchett. All right, very cool. So nobody on there is 
speaking with my accent, I assume.
    Mr. Turner. Well.
    Mr. Burchett. We already got freedom in Tennessee. We are 
Radio Free Tennessee all the time, so we are cool.
    Mr. Turner. They would like it. You know, it is amazing, 
you know, our audiences really are interested in America, you 
know, we are kind of, you know, a cultural touchstone for the 
world and people want to know what people are doing, what we 
are thinking about. You know, teens in China want to know what 
teens in America think about different issues.
    Mr. Burchett. Right.
    Mr. Turner. You know, so it could be, you know, a kid on 
the streets of Knoxville, if we were interviewing him and 
translating it to Mandarin, people, kids in China will be 
listening. Kids in Cuba would want to know what are teens 
thinking.
    Mr. Burchett. I have run over, but I would pretty much say 
for the record that they would probably need a translator for 
me. So----
    Mr. Turner. We have a lot.
    Mr. Burchett [continuing]. As many of the members in this 
committee will attest that they need one as well, but I will go 
on record.
    I know have gone over, Mr. Chairman, but East Tennessee, 
specifically the second congressional district, is the only 
place in America where people do not speak with an accent, so 
thank you.
    Mr. Engel. You know, Mr. Burchett, I let you speak longer 
because I just love your accent.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, brother. That is very cool. I 
appreciate that. I always notice that Representative Omar, 
sometimes when she is--I just saw her in here, but she has 
walked out. But sometimes when I speak, she gets a grin on her 
face and I am not sure what that is about. But----
    Mr. Engel. Thank you.
    Mr. Burchett [continuing]. That is cool with me. Thank you, 
brother.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Engel. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Deutch.
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to 
you and the ranking member for holding this really critically 
important hearing today. And I am really grateful to all of the 
witnesses for coming and sharing your experiences.
    I would like to spend the time I have focusing on the role 
of journalists in the efforts of that we have been discussing 
today. And, Ms. Bennett, I think I am going to direct most of 
my questions to you to try to tap into your illustrious career 
as a decorated and accomplished journalist, and so let me just 
go through some of these.
    First, can you explain the firewall that exists? Tell us 
what that is and why it is so important to independent 
journalism.
    Ms. Bennett. Yes, thank you for asking that. A firewall of 
sorts, although it is not called that, exists in virtually 
every news organization at least in this country. And the 
purpose of this firewall is to allow the journalists to operate 
independently without reference to any kind of pressure from, 
in the private sector it is from the people who provide the 
money from the advertising sides, from the circulation side, 
from people who in the community would want to put pressure on 
you not to cover one thing or another or to cover it in a 
specific way.
    That firewall is a matter--it is not called a firewall in 
the private industry, but it does very clearly exist. I 
operated for most of my career under that system. Moving into 
USAGM, it was actually a system that was codified into law and 
practice. And that meant that the journalists are free to make 
decisions on what they cover as was just as Mr. Turner just 
remarked, on where you cover, how you cover it, what 
journalists you hire, what journalists you discipline and for 
what purpose, how you maintain critical standards.
    Those things are all handled by the journalists without 
reference to pressure from the outside, because even an 
identical operation so, example, disciplining someone for 
biased coverage, it is different when it is done by a 
journalist who has no actual association with either side of 
the argument than when it is by people who have some kind of 
connection with that.
    Mr. Deutch. All right, so thank you very much. So let me 
ask you then, for VOA journalists who are being fired, who are 
being forced to leave the country, can you speak to some of the 
possible scenarios that they might face when they return home?
    Ms. Bennett. Well, again, as I mentioned, I am no longer 
there so I cannot speak to specific things that are happening 
there. But I can say that one of the things that we are always 
acutely aware of with all our journalists is the dangers they 
face back home from the reporting that they do. Whether they 
are in this country or out of this country their families are 
facing pressure.
    Many of the people who are coming to us from other 
countries are some of the bravest people I know. I, in a 40-
year career, used to hear people talk about courageous 
journalism, and I have said to my colleagues now, I did not 
know what that meant until I came to VOA and watched the kind 
of pressure from a variety of things--financial pressure, 
physical pressure, imprisonment.
    We have had to repeatedly, over my career at VOA I have had 
to deal with extricating journalists from very, very difficult 
and dangerous situations. So the fact that journalists who are 
sent home without--suddenly, it certainly could be a danger.
    Mr. Deutch. So let me be a little more specific. On August 
31st, a group of veteran VOA journalists penned a letter to the 
acting director saying that, and I quote, ``the purge appears 
to be expanding to include U.S. permanent residents and even 
people who have----
    [Audio interference.]
    Mr. Deutch [continuing]. Recklessly expressing that being a 
journalist is a great cover for a spy.'' Can you share with us, 
given your experience in a very long and successful career as a 
journalist, highlight why that kind of remark is so dangerous 
not just to lives of journalists, but also to truth and 
transparency which we all know are critical cornerstones of 
democracy?
    Ms. Bennett. Well, you know, again, without reference to 
that specific document, which I think speaks very much for 
itself, I would say that fighting the perception that 
journalists are spies is one of the most critical factors 
particularly in reporting from danger zones. As my colleague, 
my former colleague, Bay Fang, who was the former head of Radio 
Free Asia who did work in conflict zones, explains, that is 
something you really had to be very careful with because it 
would endanger the lives of journalists who were operating in 
these countries.
    So suggestions that journalists are spies is a very 
critical and very dangerous thing to do. As for the issues with 
the security clearance, I think it was Mr. Turner explained it 
very, very well and in fact that the part of the issue with the 
vetting procedures that were being scrutinized was that VOA and 
USAGM were actually trying to use a more stringent vetting 
procedure that was more appropriate for people who had been 
living in foreign countries. So it was not that we were doing 
an insignificant, a less significant procedure. It was that we 
were trying to do a more significant procedure.
    So that is part of the issue was to make sure that these 
things, the reality and the perception, matched.
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you very much, Ms. Bennett. I appreciate 
it.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I join with so many of my colleagues in 
expressing my great frustration and regret and anger that Mr. 
Pack is not here to respond to these kinds of questions and to 
explain to us why he would utter statements like that that are 
reckless and dangerous, and to actually address our concerns. I 
hope that we will have the opportunity. I suspect not, but I am 
grateful for the opportunity to speak with this illustrious 
panel of witnesses and to hear from them today. Thanks so much. 
I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Deutch.
    Ms. Bass.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for holding this 
hearing. This is just so discouraging to see another part of 
our government that has just been so compromised. First----
    [Audio interference.]
    Ms. Bass [continuing]. At the State Department, and now to 
see this. I wanted to know if you could describe to me what 
UltraSurf is and who has been pushing it and what the problems 
with it are. And I am not sure, whichever witness would like to 
respond to this.
    Ms. Kornbluh. I think maybe I should try. Congresswoman 
Bass, on UltraSurf, you know, that technology that was rejected 
by the State Department and the USAGM's office because the 
technology did not appear to be satisfactory. It is not an open 
source technology, and that is the limit of what I can say 
about it as the chair. I have not been involved in evaluating 
it.
    Ms. Bass. Anyone?
    Mr. Turner. I can also add that it is an internet 
circumvention tool. It focused largely on China. As Ambassador 
Kornbluh mentioned, it is an open source which is the very--it 
has not been subjected to a really rigorous code review and 
audit. We have been unable to fund that tool or work with that 
organization through OTF because they are not in compliance 
with the rigorous sort of security reviews that OTF does.
    Obviously, when you have these tools that people are 
risking their lives on, you know, if the government knows that 
they are accessing our content or perhaps if they are a human 
rights activist or a protestor it is very dangerous to them, so 
we really want to have the highest assurance that it is 
completely safe. We have other tools which reach China very, 
very effectively and that is sort of my extent of my knowledge 
of UltraSurf as well. But I am sure the Agency could provide 
additional information, and OTF as well.
    Ms. Bass. Either one of you?
    Hello, can you guys hear me?
    Ambassador?
    Mr. Engel. Ms. Bass, can you repeat that because we did not 
hear you for part of the time.
    Ms. Bass. I am sorry. I did not hear you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Engel. We could not hear part of what you were saying 
so if you could please repeat it.
    Ms. Bass. Oh, sure. I was just saying, you know, who has 
been pushing UltraSurf? Who has been pushing the U.S. 
Government to support it? And maybe because the connection has 
been a little dicey, I did not hear if you guys responded 
before.
    Ms. Kornbluh. Grant, do you have information on that?
    Mr. Turner. You know, I believe the UltraSurf organization 
has worked in the past with the Lantos Foundation and they 
have, I think, represented them in some form. But I do not know 
much more beyond that.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. Okay.
    Mr. Turner. You know, other than we, of course, are very 
willing to consider tools that meet our requirements.
    Ms. Kornbluh. Congresswoman, we would be happy to submit 
more information for the record for you.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. All right. And this is to all of you. Has 
Mr. Pack ever given any indication that he would demand loyalty 
from USAGM staff and try to push out those who he did not 
consider loyal?
    Ambassador Crocker? Anybody? Is it difficult to hear me or 
what is going on?
    Mr. Engel. We can hear you now. Is there----
    Mr. Fly. This is Jamie Fly. I will just say at least in my 
case there was no demand of loyalty because there was no 
conversation, which I think was the case with the other network 
heads. So at least with those of us at the networks who were 
removed very early, as Grant said on his first day in the 
office, he did not have time to ask for loyalty because he did 
not bother to talk to us.
    Ms. Bass. And if I am not mistaken, in your earlier 
testimony it was not as though you were advised that anything 
that you did was improper?
    Mr. Fly. No. It was clear that removed me, and then the one 
conversation that I had with him about 10 days later that I was 
removed without cause.
    Ms. Bass. Okay.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. OK. Thank you, Ms. Bass. Thank you, Ms. Bass.
    Mr. Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
calling this hearing.
    I would like to just ask maybe Jamie Fly or any of the 
others who might want to respond to this, but back in 2014 when 
Khadija Ismayilova was arrested, a Radio Free Europe reporter 
but an indigenous person to Azerbaijan, on, really, trumped-up, 
politically charged charges that included--that sent her to 
prison for 7 years, or least got a prison sentence because she 
was serving some of it, I held a hearing.
    We had the vice president editor in chief of programming 
for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty come and testify, gave 
great testimony on her behalf. I introduced a bill called the 
Azerbaijan Human Rights Act and it listed the people like her 
who had been unfairly incarcerated and on politically trumped-
up charges. And she had pointed out, frankly, how corrupt 
Aliyev was, and for that she was harshly punished.
    I wonder, you know, fast forward to right now with Belarus 
and what is happening there, you know, many of us have spoken 
out repeatedly for decades against Alexander Lukashenko who was 
dubbed for years as the last dictator of Europe, of course, now 
we again have Putin.
    But the problem is that he is a charmer even though he is a 
harsh man and for a while there it looked like he was getting 
some traction with Europe and with ourselves with the United 
States. He did let out most of the political prisoners, but the 
recent crackdown and the gross mistreatment of the opposition 
is calling out for again for us to be in absolute solidarity 
with the democrats who are seeking a better life for all 
Belarusians.
    And I am wondering if you could speak to, if you would, 
where are we on Azerbaijan? I know this is not as much of a 
focused hearing on countries' specific concerns and is there 
plans to ratchet up the effort even more so for Belarus? 
Because they, you know, obviously, the media is totally 
controlled by Lukashenko. We know that RT now is running the 
media as are other operatives from the Kremlin. Not that the 
ones that they replaced were any better, but it is truly a one 
monopoly and the message is all Lukashenko, Lukashenko, 
Lukashenko.
    So again, in order to pierce that very, very dangerous 
misinformation campaign, is RFE/RL ratcheting up its efforts, 
vis-a-vis Belarus?
    Mr. Fly. Thanks for those questions, Congressman, and 
thanks for your advocacy on behalf of Khadija, and, it goes 
without saying, to other members as well who often weigh in on 
behalf of RFE/RL journalists throughout my tenure. In 
Azerbaijan we have a strong service. We were kicked out of the 
country when Khadija was the bureau chief because of her 
investigative reporting about the wealth of the ruling family. 
So we operate out of Prague, but provide a key service to the 
Azeri people.
    Khadija's--the pressure on Khadija happened well before my 
tenure, but upon taking office I tried to engage her directly 
to help her resolve her outstanding issues with the Azeri 
Government and worked with a number of Members of Congress and 
with the Department of State on her behalf. I would, 
unfortunately, report that she still is facing a travel ban, 
although she is not in prison anymore, but she is not able to 
travel internationally which is what she was trying to do prior 
to the pandemic. So her case continues to need support.
    In Belarus, to pick up on what Grant Turner was talking 
about earlier, RFE/RL has had a strong service for decades. 
This is really the moment that a service like Svaboda steps up, 
covers protests. My former colleagues tell me that since June, 
our journalists at Svaboda have a combined total of 125 days 
behind bars. They have been picked up 16 times while reporting 
live on the pre-and post-election protests.
    So they are out there on the streets putting themselves at 
risk. And what they need, to pick up on what Grant was talking 
about earlier, what they would normally look to USAGM for is 
surge support. They would look for additional resources to get 
up on, in this case, the radio airwaves since the internet is 
often being blocked.
    My understanding is RFE/RL has gone up on radio again, 
temporarily, to deal with this crisis, but it has had to pay 
for it out of its own pocket because of a lack of a response 
from Mr. Pack and his team at USAGM. They would be looking for 
USAGM support in engaging the State Department when their 
journalists are in prison, as some are, when they are picked up 
and detained, when their accreditation is stripped.
    It is not just the Belarusian journalists inside Belarus, 
but RFE/RL had a number of Russian-speaking correspondents from 
its Russian networks who were in Belarus to report all that was 
happening there so the Russian people knew what was going on in 
Belarus. They were expelled from the country early on.
    And so the unfortunate thing, just to close, as I have been 
gone during this crisis--it happened shortly after I was 
fired--is this is the moment where resources should be surged 
from USAGM, additional support provided to the networks, which 
is exactly by the way what the Kremlin did for Belarusian State 
TV, surging in anchors, technical assistants, to make sure that 
Lukashenko's propaganda network stayed on the air.
    We need a similar surge in support for independent media 
including Radio Svaboda. I think they are doing the best under 
difficult circumstances, but USAGM could be doing much more 
from my understanding.
    Mr. Engel. The gentleman's time has expired.
    We go to Mr. Keating.
    Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I want to thank all of you for your service. I, you 
know, just think it is important in the beginning to stress the 
bipartisan support this committee has shown for this Agency. 
You can look back at the time when the Republican majority was 
in charge as well as today when the Democratic majority is in 
charge and it has been consistent and strong and bipartisan.
    And that same bipartisanship has come through with the 
amendment I offered with the National Defense Authorization 
Act, with the chair and the ranking member joining me, to work 
with the Agency to depoliticize and to strengthen the oversight 
function and to prevent changes in the firewall within the 
Agency.
    So it is a strong bipartisan history here that has been 
deviated by the actions of Mr. Pack and the Administration. And 
Mr. Pack has received most of the attention here this morning 
and rightfully so. He has violated a subpoena in an arrogant 
manner, a lawful subpoena, and you are struck with the irony 
here that the CEO who defies the rule of law here at home is in 
charge of an agency that is missioned with promoting the tenet 
of democracy, of rule of law, globally.
    But, you know, I want to get to the bottom of this because 
he deserves his criticism here, certainly, and more so, but he 
was not put there alone. He was not given the power to be there 
by himself and he would not continue to act like this without 
support from the Administration.
    And I noticed in the testimony this morning there was 
reference to things, for instance, the heart of the attack of 
the Trump Administration, so I want to ask our witnesses to 
give a little more testimony to what these attacks have been so 
I can get a better understanding. This is not just one person 
acting alone. When witnesses have mentioned this kind of 
action, these kinds of attacks on the Agency, could you explore 
what they are for everyone that is listening?
    Mr. Turner. I can probably add one----
    Mr. Keating. Probably Mr. Fly can----
    Mr. Turner. I can probably add one item which I think is 
relevant and it has to do with the J-1 visa holders that, you 
know, that we were told by an individual who is, you know, in 
Mr. Pack's team that, you know, it was largely to be in 
alignment with the White House's immigration policies, you 
know, rather than connected to the needs of the Agency, and, 
really, the damage that could be done to a lot of our services 
if these critical skill sets went away. So I think, you know, 
there is an example of one instance where, you know, there is, 
I think, this connection.
    Mr. Keating. It was not about the mission of the Agency. It 
was about other broader White House policy that had been 
referenced; is that correct?
    Mr. Turner. That is correct, Congressman.
    Mr. Keating. Like immigration.
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Anyone else want to comment on these kind of attacks? 
Because we do not want to put this morning's focus just on the 
fact that there is a person in place. They are there for a 
reason. They are doing things for a reason.
    Mr. Fly. Congressman, I would just add, I mean, I think I 
referenced Trump Administration attacks, although I might let 
Amanda speak more about that. But what I was referencing was 
that the President's own direct attacks on Voice of America 
which obviously led up to the confirmation of Michael Pack. 
Obviously, I was running RFE/RL which was not directly attacked 
by the President, but it still was an attack on the Agency and, 
ultimately, on the credibility of our journalists.
    The one final thing I will just say, I mean, look, I am a 
lifelong Republican. I do not believe that Mr. Pack's agenda is 
a coordinated strategy that encompasses the entire 
Administration. As I testified, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 
was on the USAGM board and including our corporate boards until 
Michael Pack dismissed him the same night he removed the 
network heads. Secretary of State Pompeo or his representatives 
fully supported the reform agenda that many of us were pushing 
at the network.
    Mr. Keating. Well, then if I could, because our time is 
very short, then it must be someone above Mr. Pompeo that is 
bolstering him, which leads us to whether it is Mr. Miller, 
because of immigration, or the President himself. And you made 
reference to the President's own remarks, so I understand the 
distinction between the support perhaps of the Secretary of 
State, but he is not calling the shots.
    And we know what it is not. We heard from one of our 
colleagues, oh, it was lack of security, Zoom, even though you 
do not use Zoom. It was hard drives, even though you use the 
cloud. You do not use hard drives. It was concerns about 
security, even though there is more egregious breaches of 
security right in the White House with Ivanka Trump and Jared 
Kushner and the President himself using an unsecured phone. So 
we know what it is not.
    But I want to quickly go to the greater concern too. 
Ambassador Crocker, who I respect enormously and have had 
occasion to deal with him in other capacities, mentioned the 
threat to national security. Can you take a few minutes at the 
end of this to comment on the threat of, really, undercutting 
this Agency to our Nation's security?
    Ambassador Crocker, if you are still there, or anyone?
    Mr. Crocker. I am here, sir. The logic that lay behind the 
founding of VOA in the dark days of World War II was our 
national security, very directly, very clearly, and that is set 
by reference that initial broadcast. In just a few words, Mr. 
Hale, I think, summarized the strategic logic of the creation 
of VOA and its continuing mission today along with the other 
entities and grantees.
    It is an ugly world out there as you know, sir. You 
visited----
    Mr. Keating. Well, thank you. If I could, you are breaking 
up and my time is running out. But I would say it is so 
relevant today in that regard. I just--it was just days ago 
that I was on a broadcast and a briefing with Sviatlana 
Tsikhanouskaya from Lithuania and she was commenting on the 
importance when--we were talking about what the U.S. can do of 
the kind of functions you are talking about, and your Agency 
truly represents not what they are being threatened to be 
turned into by this Administration and Mr. Pack. I yield back.
    Ms. Bennett. Mr. Chairman, may I respond since my name was 
mentioned? This is Amanda Bennett.
    Mr. Engel. Certainly.
    Ms. Bennett. I would like to thank the Congressman for his 
question and just reiterate that yes, as Mr. Fly noted, I was 
the subject of some--or my agency was the subject of some 
attacks.
    But I would just like to say that for me the issue--that 
raises the issue of the strength of the firewall. I do not know 
of any Administration that is happy with the coverage that the 
media gives of them, ever, in the history of Administrations, 
and so the fact that the President might have something to 
complain about or be unhappy about with the coverage is nothing 
new.
    But the ability to then have anyone reach in and alter that 
coverage is the real problem here. Everyone should be free to 
have their own opinions, but VOA and the other agencies, the 
other entities within the USAGM Agency have been, 
traditionally, completely independent of such scrutiny and 
actions. And that is what I think is important for us to focus 
on that----
    Mr. Keating. And that I have put in my amendment.
    Ms. Bennett. Thank you for doing so.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Cicilline.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this 
hearing, and I thank the ranking member, Mr. McCaul, for his 
really thoughtful remarks as well.
    Thank you to our witnesses for your extraordinary courage. 
And this is a deeply disturbing set of events in this happening 
at USAGM. And, you know, the power of the truth and the ability 
to ensure that trustworthy, reliable news is provided is 
essential, obviously, to freedom and democracy here and around 
the world. And the idea that an agency which has done this so, 
such important work for so long is now under attack by this 
Administration, sadly, is just one more example of breaking 
important norms.
    So, Mr. Turner, I want to start with you. You said that it 
was clear to you after several weeks that Mr. Pack did not come 
to the Agency to run it. I am wondering if it was clear to you 
what he came to the Agency to do.
    Mr. Turner. You know, I still have not settled on that 
because, you know, no real strategy has emerged. He removed, 
you know, all of the network heads and he had a rather long 
confirmation process. So if he had people in mind to replace 
them, I would think he would have, you know, advanced those, 
you know, those individuals.
    I do not think he came to run it because to me it does not 
feel like he is engaged in it. He has not wanted to fund parts 
of it, you know, it has been about starving the organization of 
resources, whether it is, you know, people, money.
    Mr. Cicilline. Yes. So, Mr. Turner, I guess that is my 
question. When you do not fill positions and you remove people 
from positions and you starve grantees, you do not run the 
Agency, you actually stop it from doing its work which it seems 
like was at least the result of his conduct.
    Ms. Bennett, I want to ask you, you know, you spoke very 
powerfully about the importance of the firewall. And I wonder 
if you would describe what the consequences are when you have 
these serious violations in the firewall repeatedly. What that 
does to the confidence that people have of what is being 
reported and the morale of the news reporting agencies and the 
impact on our efforts to strengthen the free press and 
democracy here and around the world.
    Ms. Bennett. Well, again, since I have not been there 
during any period after my leadership ended, I can speak in 
general. However, in saying that as I said in the beginning, 
the thing that distinguishes Voice of America, the thing that 
distinguishes American broadcasting from the propaganda efforts 
of the authoritarian regimes that we cover is the fact that we 
are known to be and are in practice separate from any 
Administration, this Administration or any Administration.
    Any kind of attempts to regulate the output of the media by 
any Administration would be unwelcome and would be damaging to 
the reputation of the journalists and the journalism. And so if 
you want to look at the single thing that separates us from 
propaganda, it is that independence, the ability to report 
things without a reference to whoever is in power.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
    Ambassador Kornbluh, you spoke about the impact of the sort 
of ending or preventing funding to OTF as a result of Mr. 
Pack's direction. Can you speak about what were the 
implications on the work and, more broadly, what is the 
consequence of the kind of intervention that this 
Administration has attempted to impose on the operations, the 
breaking of the firewall in terms of the mission of the Agency 
and, frankly, who benefits from this conduct that diminishes 
the American voice around the world?
    Ms. Kornbluh. Thank you, Congressman. And thank you for 
your leadership on technology issues, so I know that you know 
the importance of this internet freedom work.
    You know, I could go through the specific implications in 
Hong Kong where OTF has a long history of supporting internet 
freedom efforts and was poised to expand its efforts in Hong 
Kong, but it was going to surge support for circumvention tools 
and expand support for digital training and then USAGM froze 
and continues to withhold its funding and did that just weeks 
before the new security laws came into effect, so OTF has not 
been able to support any of these efforts.
    I talked about Belarus. Iran, we have a similar 
heartbreaking story, and so on and so on. And so I think, you 
know, there are agreed-upon U.S. foreign policy and national 
security priorities which OTF, this tiny organization, this 
bipartisan success story, has furthered, you know, behind the 
scenes in its quiet, powerful way working with civil society 
groups, technologists and so on around the world and now it is 
weakened. Not only does it not have the funding to do that, but 
there have been attacks on it, on its reputation, on its 
security that are just unfounded that really, you know, will 
weaken its reputation into the future even if the funding is 
restored.
    So to your question about who does it help and who does it 
harm, it harms us. It harms the United States. It harms people 
who support democracy and democratic values around the world. 
And, unfortunately, it strengthens authoritarians.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you so much. You know, Mr. Pack's 
conduct is a gift to our adversaries. It is shocking. And when 
you think about the strategic national security and 
geopolitical consequences of the undermining of the important 
work of these agencies and then the cowardly failure of Mr. 
Pack to come and defend his just horrific behavior undermining 
the core responsibilities that he has and to think that he is 
being paid by the taxpayers of this country and does not have 
the decency to comply with a lawful subpoena and answer for his 
conduct, to me, says it all.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline.
    Mr. Castro.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that I have 
been running around to three committee hearings today, so if I 
retread some ground that we have covered, please forgive me.
    But to justify his decision to revoke the visas of foreign 
journalists working with VOA Michael Pack claimed that they 
might be spies. He presented zero evidence to back up this 
claim, however. I find the use of the term ``spies'' extremely 
interesting. For decades, authoritarian States have used this 
exact term to discredit or target journalists working for USAGM 
grantees.
    And so I want to ask the panel, do you believe a U.S. 
official claiming VOA journalists are spies helps authoritarian 
governments discredit the work of USAGM's grantees? And I open 
that up to anyone on the panel.
    Mr. Fly. I will just jump in. Even, I think Mr. Pack's 
comments were primarily about VOA, but I will just say having 
run RFE/RL, it is incredibly demoralizing for the journalists 
of an entity like RFE/RL to hear the head of USAGM making such 
comments, especially given as you noted that these are the same 
slurs that are hurled at them by the Kremlin, by authoritarian 
regimes wherever they operate, and they are often accusations 
that are weaponized as they are captured or as I mentioned 
before with our colleagues in Belarus, thrown into prison.
    And so it is incredibly dangerous for the USAGM head to 
start basically writing the press release that the Kremlin can 
then turn around and use the next week about USAGM journalists.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you.
    Mr. Turner. I cannot say it any better than Jamie that that 
is exactly my same sentiment. To use that term against 
reporters creates incredible danger. It is so irresponsible and 
it shows how little he knows about this Agency.
    Mr. Castro. And also the unceremonious dumping of 
journalists was quite bizarre, actually. The way that it was 
handled was very much what we would see in other countries with 
authoritarian rulers or nations that do not exactly follow the 
rule of law.
    But I want to ask you, you know, right now our country is 
facing a global information war from countries such as Russia 
and China and others, and our best defense from their 
misinformation campaigns is to provide objective, fact-based 
reporting so people around the world have access to truthful 
information.
    Outlets like Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Voice of 
America, and the others are uniquely suited to be on the front 
lines of that battle. So how do the changes that Mr. Pack has 
made impact our ability to combat the misinformation campaigns 
of adversaries like Russia? And I would note that this 
includes, it includes inserting partisanship into USAGM and 
firing foreign journalists who have a better sense of how to 
appeal to target audiences abroad.
    Mr. Crocker. Yes. This is Ryan Crocker. Can you hear me?
    Mr. Castro. Yes.
    Mr. Crocker. Very briefly, the steps that have been taken 
and the rhetoric that has been used not only discredits USAGM 
as an objective source of news, the reputation that was very 
hard-earned and many have fought to maintain, it also 
endangers. I was a career field guy in some of the rougher 
parts of the world. To assert that spies of foreign 
intelligence agencies have infiltrated the establishment not 
only discredits the reputation for honesty, it puts everyone 
out there in the field at danger.
    Words have consequences and to make this unfounded 
assertion risks the very lives of our correspondence overseas 
in some very tough places. It puts them physically at risk.
    Mr. Castro. No, and I have just a few seconds left, but I 
think that that is a very important point that Mr. Pack, 
without evidence, has made libelous claims, really, that were 
these journalists to go get a job somewhere else in another 
country could threaten not only their livelihoods but their 
safety.
    When somebody from the U.S. Government has labeled a 
journalist a spy, who is going to go trust them in another 
country? Who is going to go hire them somewhere else? This man 
has acted incredibly recklessly and even for that alone he 
should be dismissed from his job.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Castro. Your time is expired.
    We now go to Ms. Titus.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have enjoyed and 
learned a lot from listening to this hearing. I appreciate you 
holding it.
    Just to followup on some of the things that have already 
been mentioned, we have seen governments use a technicality in 
law to punish, imprison, or endanger journalists. We have seen 
governments accusing journalists of being spies as ways of 
curtailing them or having a chilling effect on journalists. Now 
we are seeing a general backsliding of democracy in the Eastern 
Europe and parts of Asia and along with that comes kind of the 
predictable crackdown on journalists.
    Because of COVID, we know that the spread of misinformation 
is even more dangerous, so I wonder how your organizations are 
dealing with that new element and what Mr. Pack's actions have, 
or how Mr. Pack's actions have had an effect on your ability to 
respond to this new threat.
    Ms. Bennett. This is Amanda and I can, Amanda Bennett, and 
I can answer the first half of that question. Perhaps someone 
else could answer the second half. I think it is demonstrable 
that in an era when there is just a flood of mis-and 
disinformation that the most powerful obstacle to that mis-and 
disinformation is to flood the zone with accurate information.
    And one thing I found particularly heartwarming in my 
tenure as VOA director is we did a lot of interactive work with 
our audiences, and to listen to our audiences say that they 
came to us because they could believe what they--that we said. 
That they could see what was happening in their own countries 
and that we were the ones that they came to, to tell the truth 
about it, particularly if you think about during the 
coronavirus.
    During the coronavirus, VOA in particular, and I know my 
colleagues at the other organizations did as well, very quickly 
spun up panels of global physicians to answer questions and 
give accurate information. Those were extremely well subscribed 
and as was pointed out at the very beginning of this hearing 
went viral in those countries, that information.
    Doing that kind of work is absolutely critical, 
particularly in this era of mis-and disinformation.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you. Anybody else?
    Ms. Kornbluh. Yes, I would love to weigh in as well.
    Part of this information warfare that you alluded to is 
that we are in a battle with China, especially, and to some 
extent Russia and Iran and others, over whether there is going 
to be an internet with national governments able to censor and 
surveil or whether there is going to be a U.S. model where 
there is open ability to access information.
    And OTF has been on the front lines of this, so I will give 
you an example of some of the technology they were working on. 
OTF was incubating an AI-powered circumvention engine called 
Geneva that would have dynamically used censorship evasion 
techniques faster than China's censorship apparatus. Adjust get 
past the firewall and access the internet, access VOA 
information or RFE/RL information and so on.
    And in just a matter of months, the project produced over 
60 viable means of circumvention, a process that would have 
previously taken years. That kind of innovation has now been 
put on hold because of these actions.
    Ms. Titus. Let me ask you this too. We have got an 
Administration that does not even believe our own scientists so 
that should be a problem for you, but also a President who just 
enjoys attacking the press. He does it at rallies and at press 
conferences, encourages people to beat up the press. He calls 
members of the press names, he demeans their work, and he 
started this international mantra about fake news.
    Was that part of Mr. Pack's agenda and how does that affect 
your attempt to get out there real news? Anybody?
    Ms. Kornbluh. I will just say one thing----
    Mr. Turner. I can say that----
    Ms. Kornbluh. Oh, go ahead, Grant.
    Mr. Turner. I will just offer this really quickly that 
certainly, you know, Mr. Pack has talked about, you know, 
draining the swamp and, you know, he has just sort of that, you 
know, that viewpoint and he seems to think that the swamp 
extends to, you know, to USAGM. So it gives you a little bit of 
an inkling of, you know, what he thinks about the place right 
now.
    Ms. Kornbluh. I wanted to say based on my time on the 
broader board of USAGM is that part of what these entities do 
is they model what a free press is around the world. So they 
get good information into these repressive societies, but they 
also show what a free press is. And that is one of the values 
that the U.S. has shown around the world, what can a free press 
be.
    And I think you are hearing the importance of upholding 
that value and talking about the importance of the free press 
internationally and the kind of harm that can be done when we 
denigrate it.
    Ms. Titus. Exactly. It is an institution that should be 
protected, not denigrated as you say. You said that he was not 
there to run the Agency. I think it is pretty clear he was 
there to run it in the ground.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Ms. Titus.
    Mr. Espaillat.
    Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all 
the presenters. To Mr. Fly, can you explain how Russia's 
foreign agent law has impacted Radio Free Europe and Radio 
Liberty and how we can work to overcome any challenges brought 
about by this law?
    Mr. Fly. Thanks for the question, Congressman.
    And Russia's actions to try to tighten regulations around 
the media have had significant impact on Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty and our ability to reach a Russian audience. They 
passed this foreign agent law a number of years ago which made 
RFE/RL register as a foreign agent, basically having to say 
publicly that we represent foreign interests, which is not the 
case inside Russia given that our journalists inside Russia are 
actually Russian citizens reporting on their own societies with 
full editorial independence as we have discussed many times 
during this hearing.
    And they have now taken that to a new level of passing a 
law that allows the designation of individual journalists as 
foreign agents, basically labeling individual journalists as 
spies. And, thankfully, they have not yet implemented that law, 
but it is hanging over the heads of our entire network of 
journalists inside Russia.
    And we have tried to do our best to continue to provide 
objective news and information to the Russian people, but this 
is one of those issues as well where our RFE/RL would be 
looking to responsible leadership at USAGM to work with the 
State Department and with the U.S. Government and Members of 
Congress to help RFE/RL be able to maintain that presence 
inside Russia. So this is going to be an ongoing problem, I 
fear, in the years to come.
    Mr. Espaillat. And besides the foreign agent law, what 
would you say is the most serious and most pronounced effort by 
the Russians to try to cripple our efforts to promote democracy 
across Europe and the former Soviet Union?
    Mr. Fly. Well, inside Russia itself, one of the biggest 
challenges I faced and was trying to move the organization 
forward was to just get access to the Russian audience. Over 
the years, the Russian Government has slowly limited RFE/RL's 
ability to get content on the airwaves. It has stripped RFE/RL 
of radio licenses. It has blocked its 24/7 Russian language 
network from going on satellite packages.
    Really, the primary way that RFE/RL reaches the Russian 
audience right now is digital. And because of some of the 
internet issues that we have discussed earlier, the Russian 
Government has even threatened to curtail that. So that was my 
biggest concern where I was trying to move RFE/RL forward to 
just expanding our access.
    Some of that requires a broader conversation, I believe, 
between the U.S. Government and the Russian Government about 
the way that Russian media, Russian State-funded and State-
directed media are treated in the United States, because Russia 
Today and Sputnik do not face any of the limitations that I 
just described about reaching an American audience. They can 
access every American if they want to through multiple 
platforms, and right now the Russian Government has blocked 
RFE/RL and VOA from being able to do that.
    Mr. Espaillat. And what do you think the credibility issues 
would be if broadcasters sort of like became perceived as 
propaganda outlets, you know, what is the impact, the overall 
impact in terms of credibility, the longstanding credibility if 
this were to happen?
    Mr. Fly. Well, for RFE/RL, I cannot speak for the others, 
but it completely undermines the confidence of the audience. 
And if there are questions that, serious questions of 
credibility that are raised about RFE/RL's objectivity and 
independence, the audience will go elsewhere. It is an 
incredibly competitive media environment right now, especially 
through digital platforms and even in some of these closed 
societies they have other places to go to get news and 
information. Now it will not always be independent and factual, 
but they will go elsewhere and that is really what is at risk.
    You know, at least with RFE/RL and its services what I saw 
is the connection between the audience and the network is 
incredibly personal. It is emotional. People trust the 
correspondence. They trust the anchors. And as soon as they 
think that those journalists are not able to do their job 
independently, they may be tempted to go elsewhere, which would 
really be sacrificing an important tool that has been developed 
over decades.
    Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Thank you all.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Espaillat.
    Ms. Omar.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you for holding 
this hearing.
    Ms. Bennett, I just wanted to get a few facts on the table. 
Is it correct that VOA needs to maintain political independence 
and neutrality?
    Ms. Bennett. Yes, that is correct.
    Ms. Omar. And is it correct the VOA is not supposed to 
target American audience with its programming?
    Ms. Bennett. That is also correct. Incidental acquisition 
of the content is permitted because it is very difficult, of 
course, to throttle the internet. But yes, targeting the United 
States audience is not permitted.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you.
    Mr. Turner, before he was appointed as CEO of USAGM, the 
only thing most people knew about Mr. Michael Pack is that he 
used to make movies with Stephen Bannon. Mr. Bannon is a long 
critic of USAGM, admitting to the L.A. Times that he told the 
President long ago that Trump did not need to start a new 
government network to push out the MAGA talking points. You got 
one, Mr. Bannon said, and he argued that it was called the 
Voice of America.
    Now Mr. Bannon is long gone from government, thankfully, 
but the Trump Administration remains intent on getting Mr. Pack 
installed so quickly before the election. And this is why I was 
so disturbed by a protected whistleblower disclosure that you 
submitted to the Office of the Inspector General. Do you recall 
that document?
    Mr. Turner. Yes, Congresswoman, I do.
    Ms. Omar. OK. And in that disclosure, which details 
numerous abuses and potential illegal actions by Mr. Pack and 
his team, two things really stood out to me. One is that you 
disclosed to the IG that Mr. Pack required USAGM networks to 
carry out a link to editorial pages on each of those websites 
with a variety of press releases and other Administration-
produced information from the Department of UGS.
    Mr. Turner. Correct.
    Ms. Omar. First, why was that so disturbing to you that you 
needed to disclose that?
    Mr. Turner. It gets at, really, the heart of the firewall 
and the independence of the organizations. You know, part of 
our mission is to help communicate and help people around the 
world to understand the policy positions of our government. 
What is the Administration thinking about? What is the Congress 
thinking about? That is why we cover hearings, you know, that 
is a big part of our job.
    But dictating how the news is to be delivered breaches that 
firewall. Ordering each of our networks to carry the 
Administration's content in a prescribed way is a breach of 
that firewall and that is why I wanted to disclose it.
    Ms. Omar. And, second, why was Mr. Pack so focused on using 
the organization to push out the Administration's talking 
points?
    Mr. Turner. You know, I am not entirely sure. You know, I 
think it is the one maybe concrete thing that I have seen him 
do is insert, you know, these editorials into each of the 
networks. So I suspect it was on his list of things he wanted 
to do.
    Ms. Omar. And the other thing that you disclosed was that 
Mr. Pack directed members of his team to participate in VOA's 
planning meetings for coverage of the upcoming elections. Why 
was that something you felt you needed to disclose?
    Mr. Turner. Once again, just, you know, a horrible breach 
of the firewall. You know, I think the last, you know, things 
that people in this committee would want is, you know, someone 
from the opposing party inserting, you know, their people into 
the planning meetings for the coverage of the upcoming 
Presidential election.
    You know, it runs, you know, one way this year, but 
eventually the shoe is on the other foot. And I think that is 
why when we operated under a bipartisan board, things, you 
know, were quite balanced. If you look at the body of work that 
our organization puts out, it is very balanced. So it--VOA said 
no to that request and there are strong reporters there who 
have strong journalistic principles and they resisted it.
    But to one by one take out the strong people and intimidate 
the others, that is, I think, a long-term question.
    Ms. Omar. Well, we are thankful for that refusal. There is 
danger when VOA is seen as a propaganda arm of any 
Administration, and as we do our work outside of the country 
our credibility is important and so I appreciate you for your 
bravery and I appreciate every single person who is putting 
their life on the line in honestly reporting the news.
    Mr. Turner. Thank you.
    Mr. Engel. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
    Mr. Phillips.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all of 
you, to our witnesses for appearing in front of us today. So 
many of my colleagues almost universally have shared their 
mutual perspective of disappointment that Mr. Pack has chosen 
not to honor his commitment to testify in front of us, so we 
appreciate your time and, frankly, your courage.
    Jefferson once said that if he had to choose between a 
government without newspapers or newspapers without a 
government, he would not hesitate a moment to choose the 
latter. Our founders knew that a free press was vital to an 
open democratic society, and USAGM was founded on those very 
principles and now its networks, of course, reach more than 350 
million people all around the world.
    I could not say it better than its own mission statement, 
``The five media organizations that comprise USAGM complement 
and reinforce one another in a shared mission vital to U.S. 
national interests to inform, to engage, and to connect people 
around the world in support of freedom and democracy.'' So it 
is clear to me that all of you, all of our witnesses here today 
adhere to those very values and are committed to the pursuit in 
support of this mission.
    And that is why I have watched with such alarm as Mr. Pack 
has compromised so many of these core elements. To name a few, 
attempting to withhold funding from and cripple programs of 
national security interests to the United States; making public 
comments about foregoing COVID protections for employees in an 
effort to ``drain the swamp;'' dismissing lawyers who advised 
him on the importance of a firewall that legally protects VOA's 
legally mandated editorial independence, among many other 
things.
    So my first question is to you, Mr. Crocker, about that 
role of political appointees, the role that they can and should 
play in the governance of USAGM. So please tell us, what is the 
specific role of the various boards of directors of the 
services?
    Mr. Crocker. Thank you, Congressman, for that excellent 
question. The board of USAGM, and Ambassador Kornbluh and I 
were two of its members, that board was dissolved effective 
with the first Presidentially nominated, Senate-confirmed CEO, 
Michael Pack, as soon as he was sworn in. We expected that. 
That was in a conversation that the Hill had.
    But what we did not expect was the wholesale dismissal of 
the mirror boards for the entities and grantees. One of the 
important changes of the board on which I was privileged to 
serve was to ensure that board membership across all of the 
entities and agencies was the same as the USAGM board. That 
gave us a common perspective. It gave us the opportunity to 
ensure coherent decisionmaking.
    So the entity and grantee boards again identical to the 
broader USAGM board was to oversee the functioning of the 
entities, to ask the hard questions and then in particular to 
approve resource allocations. We were all prepared, I think, to 
carry on as necessary on those boards to assist with the 
process of transition. We were all summarily dismissed.
    So in addition to the problems we have seen since June, you 
quite correctly add to it this: It is not simply that the CEOs 
were all dismissed, we have covered that at length here, a huge 
hit to our entire mission effort, but also the boards that had 
continuity and oversight. So effectively, as Mr. Fly and others 
just said, these ships no longer have rudders and it is a very, 
very dangerous development.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Crocker. You know, you all 
know too well that Mr. Pack has replaced boards, replaced 
members of the boards with himself, his chief of staff, Trump 
political appointees with other agencies, even the senior 
counsel of an organization at the Southern Poverty Law Center 
as designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
    So, Mr. Fly, a question for you, quickly. What impact does 
that have on USAGM's employees, the culture, and the atmosphere 
inside?
    Mr. Fly. It is incredibly dangerous. And I outlined in my 
written testimony at least in the case of RFE/RL the statute, 
despite the additional powers given to the CEO, specifically 
requires that the corporate board of RFE/RL make all personnel 
decisions related to officers. I have no evidence that the RFE/
RL corporate board, the new corporate board that Mr. Pack 
appointed, ever even discussed my termination. I have never met 
any of the other board members other than Mr. Pack, so I do not 
know how they would follow their fiduciary obligations to the 
company under Delaware law where it is incorporated.
    And the final thing I will just note, I have concerns about 
the fact that the board of each of the grantees is now a 
majority Federal board. There is only one non-Federal member on 
that board. The statute, and I have it right in front of me, 
says specifically that the statute is not to make any of the 
grantees a Federal agency or instrumentality.
    I do not know how that is maintained when you have a 
corporate board of each of the grantees that is made up of a 
majority of Federal officials. So I think there is a whole host 
of issues here that have not been explored yet that should be 
explored because I think they have significant long-term 
consequences for the independence of each of the grantees.
    Mr. Phillips. I wholeheartedly agree and----
    Mr. Engel. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Phillips [continuing]. Thank you. I yield back. Thank 
you. Thank you all for your courage.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you.
    Ms. Houlahan.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you all here present and also virtually for your 
very, I think, brave testimony. I will also apologize in case 
this question has been asked and answered. But I would love to 
know, first, from Ms. Bennett, if you could help us understand 
why there are so many journalists who are foreign nationals in 
Voice of America and what particular skills do they bring to 
the work?
    And also if you would enlighten us a little bit more about 
the recruitment process for these journalists and what draws 
them to the work sometimes, of course, risking their lives to 
do so.
    Ms. Bennett. Yes. Thank you very much for that question. 
The journalists that come here from other countries bring, 
really, unique skills that are very, very hard to find. And we 
know this because before we recruit anyone from the outside, we 
are required to advertise extensively within the United States 
looking for these skills. And over years and years it has 
proved very difficult to find people with excellent 
journalistic skills, native and colloquial command of a 
language that can be used in a broadcasting platform, so--and 
also people with journalistic skills and context and 
understanding of the countries in which they broadcast.
    These are unbelievably difficult things to find. The people 
that come to us to the Voice of America to broadcast see this 
as a career move because of the reputation that Voice of 
America has both in their countries and around the world, so to 
be able to come and work at the Voice of America is both a 
tremendous honor and a tremendous risk each of them is 
undertaking.
    As has been mentioned previously here, it is a security and 
safety risk for many of these people because the countries that 
we are broadcasting to and recruiting from are largely 
authoritarian countries that do not welcome the Voice of 
America or Radio Free Europe or Radio Free Asia broadcasting 
there. So the journalists that come here are both highly 
skilled, highly knowledgeable, and highly courageous and 
perform a very vital function within the broadcast of all of 
us.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I very much appreciate that 
insight. This next question is for you as well as for Mr. Fly, 
and I think that Mr. Phillips also asked a similar question. 
But I would be interested to know what you are perceiving the 
morale of everybody to be underneath these very, very difficult 
circumstances, if you could comment on that, please.
    Let's start with Mr. Turner.
    Mr. Turner. I do have contact with, you know, folks who 
have reached out to me and it seems like it is pretty bad. It 
is sad. Mr. Pack said one of his first, one of his goals was to 
raise morale and it is completely the opposite. I mean his 
actions have created a chilling effect. It is intimidating 
people. People are afraid, you know, for the jobs. People are 
afraid that they are going to have to leave the country as you 
had pointed out and go back to potentially, really, you know, 
unwelcome receptions due to the work that they have done for 
us. So it is pretty bad.
    Ms. Houlahan. Ms. Bennett, would you like to add to that?
    Ms. Bennett. I think I would like to discuss it in the 
opposite effect which is that during the time up until our 
departure, the leaders of the organizations, we found that our 
morale had increased substantially because of the dedication 
and devotion of the journalists to their mission. And so for 
those of us who felt like our mission was to remove obstacles 
and to clear the path for them to operate more effectively, we 
found that that improved the morale. We at VOA actually 
surveyed the morale and discovered that, you know, between 2016 
to the previous year, this current year, morale increased from 
46 percent of people believing that they were generally 
satisfied with the organization to over 70 percent. That is a 
pretty big jump and I attribute that completely to the 
dedication that people had to the mission and their 
appreciation of the fact that they felt that the mission was 
being supported.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thanks. And with the last 30 or so seconds of 
my time, I was wondering. You clearly, I hope, have heard that 
there is an enormous amount of support bipartisanly for the 
mission of USAGM and as we try as a Congress to continue our 
responsibility of oversight, what kind of reforms do you 
believe that could be made at the Agency and how could Congress 
be helpful in those reforms as well?
    I will start with Mr. Turner since he is in front of me and 
shaking his head.
    Mr. Turner. You know, as we kind of entered on this 
experiment of having our first Presidentially appointed, 
Senate-confirmed CEO, we did not quite know what to expect and 
I think everyone thought, you know, kind of a reasonable person 
theory that, you know, you get reasonable people, the 
government structure that was created would work. It certainly 
does not feel like it is working very well right now. I think 
there are a lot of people, you know, with ideas about what, you 
know, reform could take place.
    I mentioned our former general counsel, David Kligerman, 
who is very knowledgeable and I know would be very happy to, 
you know, to assist anyone. You know, there is a thing about, 
you know, do not tear down a fence until you know why someone 
put it up, and I think that is the case here. You know, we had 
a bipartisan board and it worked, so maybe going back to that 
might help.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
    I apologize for going over and I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Ms. Houlahan.
    Mr. Malinowski.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I wanted to start with a question that I think will help 
illuminate the value of these broadcast agencies. We have 
talked about Belarus quite a bit as a current example and I 
just wanted to ask Mr. Fly to confirm that RFE and Radio 
Svaboda, they are covering this crisis every single day, 
basically, 24/7; is that correct?
    Mr. Fly. Yes. Yes, and often as I noted before, getting 
arrested while doing it.
    Mr. Engel. Right. And CNN is not broadcasting 24/7 from 
Belarus. Fox News is not. The Times is not doing 12 stories a 
day on its front page, or any other major newspaper, right, so 
this is a unique service that the rest of the international 
media just does not have the resources to provide. Is that----
    Mr. Fly. Yes, especially in Belarusian, which is what 
Svaboda is broadcasting in, there are several other private 
competitors but, obviously, their primary competitor is 
Belarusian State TV. It is Lukashenko's propaganda now 
buttressed by RT apparatchiks sent from Moscow.
    Mr. Malinowski. Right. And just very briefly, like what is 
the difference between our coverage and RT? Why do people want 
to, people in Belarus want to listen to our service?
    Mr. Fly. Because over decades they have built up confidence 
amongst the audience and respect because they know Svaboda 
stands for truth. And there have even been videos during the 
protests of them seeing the Svaboda journalists covering the 
protests and the crowd starting to chant, ``Svaboda, Svaboda.'' 
There is an emotional attachment to the brand.
    Mr. Malinowski. Well, it is that notion of truth. And I 
will, you know, tell you as sort of a personal experience, I 
was born in Poland and my family once told me the story of like 
1960's, Polish State television, Communist television which 
show these images of our civil rights protests in the American 
South, thinking that it would turn people against America 
because there is violence, people protesting for their rights 
being put down by riot police.
    And it had exactly the opposite effect, because actually 
seeing the truth about Americans being able to protest 
injustice convinced people in Poland that actually, you know, 
this is a place--this is a system that we would like to have in 
our country. And so this notion that telling the truth whether 
the news about America is good or bad, being valuable to our 
interests, I think, is central to this discussion.
    Mr. Turner, I am sure you are aware that Mr. Pack has a 
longstanding association with Steve Bannon and that before his 
appointment, Pack's appointment, Mr. Bannon was pushing this 
appointment as a way of trying to ensure that these broadcast 
agencies were promoting the President's America First agenda 
around the world, that it would compete with CNN, he said.
    A, is that appropriate, and B, after Mr. Pack's arrival, 
did you see any sign that that was in fact his motivation?
    Mr. Turner. Thank you. It is certainly not appropriate. I 
think there have been windows into that. The firewall breaches 
with, you know, trying to insert, you know, political 
leadership or his operatives into planning sessions for VOA's 
coverage of a Presidential election, I think, is an indication 
of how, you know, they would like things to work.
    As of now, I think each of the grantees and VOA are 
showing, you know, what high-quality reporting takes place 
there. You know, they are excellent journalists and they are 
standing strong. I know that many of them have been asked to 
compromise and there have been lots of intimidation. I think 
the worry is as Mr. Pack's tenure continues to remove the 
strongest of the strong, to wear down the others, does 
intimidation permeate the organizations, and it is the 
trajectory I really worry about.
    Mr. Malinowski. Well, I would--look, I would say if 
President Joe Biden were to appoint somebody to this position 
with the charge of competing with Fox News or promoting the 
Biden Administration's vision of the world, I would be just as 
upset. It would be just as damaging----
    Mr. Turner. Yes.
    Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. To the integrity of this 
institution. And let me just say, you know, we have heard a lot 
about a lot of paranoia coming from this man about foreign 
spies infiltrating USAGM. And I would say, you know, I would 
never accuse somebody of consciously serving foreign interests 
without evidence to back that charge, but if China, Russia, 
North Korea, or any of our adversaries had, in fact, 
infiltrated USAGM, they could not possibly have done more harm 
to America's interests than Mr. Pack has, in fact, done on his 
own. Thank you and I yield back.
    Mr. Engel. Okay. The gentleman's time has expired and that 
concludes the questioning. I want to thank our witnesses for 
very important testimony. I want to thank our members for 
being--sticking here and almost everybody on the committee 
asked a question.
    And this is certainly something that we are going to 
continue to pursue as time moves on, so thanks to everybody 
that participated and the hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX

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