[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 104 (Thursday, June 4, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2708-S2709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Michael Pack

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the nomination of 
Michael Pack to be the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Agency for 
Global Media. Yet, before I get into the specifics of the Pack 
nomination, I need to say a few words about the moment we are in and 
how we got here.
  We are facing two devastating crises. Over 100,000 Americans have 
died from COVID-19 in just a matter of months, and that number 
continues to grow. The scale and the speed of the tragedy is almost 
impossible to comprehend. We certainly stand with all of our families 
who have lost loved ones, and we cherish their memories. Unlike COVID-
19, the second crisis is one of our own making.
  Over centuries of injustice, African Americans and other people of 
color have not been treated like human beings; they have not been 
treated like every American deserves to be treated, like every person 
in the world has the right to be treated. No. All too often, they have 
been treated like George Floyd, with a knee on the neck as they gasp 
and choke ``I can't breathe.'' As a result, our country has erupted 
with protests. In this moment, these grievances have been met with the 
petty antics and deplorable, violent tactics of notorious dictators 
around the world.
  I am shaking in having to say this. I am shaken to the core that 
President Trump, with the assistance of his Attorney General, used 
violence against peaceful protesters--people exercising their First 
Amendment rights--all for a photo op with a Bible. That is not right. 
It is not acceptable, and that is not America.
  This body has to act. We have to act quickly and effectively to 
address these twin crises. The moment calls for leadership at every 
level. We all know this, but we are not doing it. Why not? The answer 
is that President Trump and the Republican majority of this body are 
focused elsewhere while our country is suffering--perhaps like never 
before. They are focused on domestic political errands. Yet, while 
trivial, these errands are corrosive to this body, to our country, and 
to the Constitution.
  I need to say a few words about what is and what is not happening in 
the Committee on Foreign Relations, because it bears directly on how 
and why Michael Pack is getting a vote on the Senate floor today.
  The Committee on Foreign Relations has helped to shape our collective 
response to some of the country's greatest challenges--from Vietnam to 
September 11, to Afghanistan. We ought to be rising to the challenges 
of our time and shaping the international response to COVID-19. Yet, 
tragically, we have not held one public hearing on COVID, and the 
committee has not debated or voted on a single COVID-related bill or 
amendment despite our being months into the crisis. I know the 
Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations came 
together and offered a bill as part of an effort to be bipartisan so as 
to begin to address the crisis, because we understand that viruses and 
diseases know no borders.
  For as long as anyone can remember, until its current chairman, the 
committee has operated pursuant to what is known as comity. While that 
sounds like a fancy word, it simply means that we have found a way to 
work together to achieve a process that has worked for all members--the 
majority and minority alike--even if we haven't always agreed on the 
substance. Had the chairman engaged to our condition of comity, we 
would have almost certainly had a business meeting that would have 
focused on COVID, which is the crisis at hand, and not Mr. Pack--a 
blatantly flawed nominee. I know that ``comity'' sounds awfully quaint 
in the polarized times in which we live, but it has worked. It has 
worked for the members, for the committee, and for the country. It has 
been the force that has bound us together, the force by which we have 
found common ground to advance the national interest
  I am sad to report that the Michael Pack nomination was the nail in 
the coffin for comity. The chairman ignored the requests of every 
member of the committee's minority--a simple request: Let's not vote on 
Michael Pack until we have collectively worked through all of the 
serious background problems that exist. The letter that was sent to the 
chairman did not even get responded to prior to ramming Pack through 
the committee. That silence and the actions that have been taken have 
changed the committee and, I believe, the Senate for the worse.
  I don't have the time or the inclination to go through every 
violation of the rules and norms that marred the committee's process on 
Michael Pack, but there is one violation that I have to speak to, one 
that is so serious and so corrosive that it needs to be documented and 
should never be repeated. I am speaking about the chairman's refusal to 
allow a video stream live of the committee's debate and vote on Mr. 
Pack. Yes, the chairman intentionally deprived the public of its 
opportunity to watch this unfortunate episode unfold as it did. This 
was shameful. It violated the rules. It sent the wrong message to every 
American and every person around the world.
  This committee is a beacon of light to the world for those who are 
oppressed, for transparency, for open government, for the rule of law, 
for a free press. Well, we shut out the Nation and the world for the 
first time in my years of being on the committee. Since I got to the 
Senate, I have been on the committee. I am the longest serving member 
of the committee from either side of the aisle. Never have we done 
that. This is a message that we are weak, a message that we are 
ashamed, a message that has no place in our democracy.
  Now let me turn to Mr. Pack.
  If confirmed, Mr. Pack will oversee the Voice of America, Radio Free 
Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Television Marti, Radio Free Asia, and the 
Middle East Broadcasting Networks. It is absolutely critical that any 
person in this position maintain a strong firewall

[[Page S2709]]

between the work of its networks and grantees and political 
interference or influence from the White House or any others. People 
around the world have come to view the products from all of the 
networks and grantees as being reliable and trustworthy news sources.
  As this pandemic has highlighted, people crave reliable, independent, 
and credible journalism. The networks of the USAGM are sometimes the 
only independent journalism a country can rely on to bring free and 
open media to closed societies. In the past, the agency has made some 
serious missteps and the board and the agency's head have historically 
worked with Congress to help to address them.
  Sadly, the debate over Mr. Pack has not even ripened to a discussion 
of his substantive qualifications. No. We are stuck dealing with the 
nominee's serious background problems despite there being multiple 
efforts to engage Chairman Risch, the White House, and Mr. Pack himself 
on these matters. The central issue with Mr. Pack is the way that he 
used--perhaps abused--his nonprofit organization, Public Media Lab, and 
his refusal to come clean about it.
  As you can see from this chart, Mr. Pack is the president of both the 
Public Media Lab and his for-profit company, Manifold Productions, LLC, 
which he owns. It is where Gina Pack, his wife, is the vice president 
and sole other employee. Mr. Pack created and controls both 
organizations. Since creating Public Media Lab in 2008, Mr. Pack has 
used it to raise more than $4 million from private foundations. Some of 
those grants were earmarked to make specific films while others, like a 
$250,000 grant from the Charles Koch Foundation, were simply for 
``general operating support'' for Public Media Lab.

  As you can see from this next chart, Mr. Pack transferred 100 
percent--100 percent--of the tax-exempt grant money Public Media Lab 
received to his for-profit company Manifold. No grants were given to 
any other organization--none. The IRS would probably call that 
operating a nonprofit for private benefit, but I will get to that in a 
minute.
  Some of that grant money was used to make films, but based on Mr. 
Pack's financial disclosures, it is possible that up to 75 percent of 
it--millions of dollars--went straight to Mr. Pack and his wife Gina.
  What you see on this chart, as was suggested in the debate the other 
day, is not normal. It is not normal. This is not the standard. This is 
not how it is done in the industry. That is why the Office of the 
Attorney General for the District of Columbia, where Public Media Lab 
is incorporated, is now investigating Mr. Pack's nonprofit for possibly 
breaking the law. The question they are asking is whether Mr. Pack used 
donations to the nonprofit for his own enrichment--to line his own 
pockets.
  From my understanding, this kind of behavior would normally raise 
some yellow flags at the IRS as well and they would be curious as to 
why a nonprofit seemed to be operating for the sole benefit of its 
creator, but the yellow flag never went up at the IRS because, for many 
years after he created Public Media Lab, Mr. Pack never disclosed that 
it was doing business with his company--with himself.
  The IRS asks nonprofits two key questions to determine whether a 
situation of private benefit might exist, and for many, many years, Mr. 
Pack falsely told the IRS there was no relationship. When the IRS asked 
Mr. Pack, under penalty of perjury, whether Public Media Lab provided 
grants to any entity controlled by an officer of the nonprofit, he said 
no, year after year. But the true answer was yes. The IRS also asked 
Mr. Pack, again, under penalty of perjury, whether Public Media Lab 
conducted business with any entity that it shared officers or directors 
with. Again and again, year after year, Mr. Pack said no, but the true 
answer was yes.
  Had Mr. Pack told the IRS the truth, he would have had to make 
additional disclosures that might have raised that yellow flag, but the 
IRS was left in the dark by Mr. Pack's false statements.
  When the committee confronted Mr. Pack last year with these false 
statements, he claimed they were ``oversights'' and that he did not 
need to amend his filings because his false statements were 
unintentional, but then he turned around and made false statements to 
the committee about his taxes.
  Unfortunately, given the false statements to the IRS year after year 
and then to the committee, we have to be concerned that Mr. Pack has a 
problem with the truth. Mr. Pack needs to come clean with the Senate, 
and he needs to come clean with the IRS. He needs to tell the IRS what 
is on this chart, how much grant money he transferred from Public Media 
Lab to Manifold, and that he sent it from himself to himself.
  So let's review what we have learned from these charts. First, Mr. 
Pack may have conducted unlawful expenditures with his nonprofit and 
operated it for private gain. Second, the IRS and the Senate don't know 
the full truth because Mr. Pack has made false statements and refused 
to provide documentation. Third, Mr. Pack's nonprofit is now under 
investigation by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of 
Columbia for the very issues that I have been seeking answers from him 
for 9 months--9 months.
  As my friend Senator Murphy solemnly noted yesterday, nominees need 
to tell the truth to Congress and the executive branch, and if there 
has been a mistake, the nominee needs to fix it. These are the basic 
requirements for all nominees who come before the Senate and the 
absolute minimum standard we used to ask them to meet.
  We live in an era where the extraordinary quickly becomes routine, 
but even by that metric, Mr. Pack's path to this floor has been a 
disgrace. If advice and consent means anything, at rock bottom, it 
means ensuring that the people we confirm are suitable for public 
service; and if they are not, we should not move forward.
  I am aware of the pressure that some of my colleagues face as a 
result of this nomination. I know that the President has publicly 
trashed Voice of America, calling it ``the voice of the Soviet Union,'' 
which I hasten to say is dangerous nonsense. And I know that the 
President has spoken both publicly and privately of his intense desire 
to confirm Mr. Pack, come what may. But the objections I have raised 
today and have been raising for months are not political or partisan in 
nature. They go to the most basic and critical question: Is Michael 
Pack fit to serve? Should he be confirmed while he is under 
investigation and after having been dishonest with the Senate and the 
IRS? Given his alleged use of a small nonprofit for self-enrichment, 
can we trust that he will not use the massive resources of the U.S. 
Government to line his own pockets?
  Colleagues, I implore you to consider these questions. Please put 
aside whatever pressure, whatever threats the President has made, and 
consider the dangerous precedent we are setting here today. If Mr. Pack 
is confirmed, the new bar for advice and consent is set below that of a 
nominee who is under open investigation by law enforcement and who 
blatantly provided Congress and the executive branch false information.
  This institution has been called the world's greatest deliberative 
body. The history of this body guides us, and we make our decisions not 
just based on the immediate needs of the President but on the example 
we will set for the future. I ask my colleagues who may be inclined to 
support Mr. Pack's nomination today, are you comfortable with this 
precedent? The answer should be obvious, and I pray that this body has 
the courage to get there. Let us turn away from Michael Pack, and let 
us focus on healing the wounds of our Nation and our democracy.
  With that, I yield the floor.