House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, issued a warning to U.S. government agencies responsible for broadcasting media in foreign countries.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is an independent federal office that oversees entities such as the Voice of America (VOA), which alone supports 48 different languages and has a global audience of 354 million, according to its website.
It is also the subject of a years-long investigation by Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee, who claim there was systemic mismanagement across the agency and accuse the agency of trying to hinder their investigation.
The investigation is particularly focused on VOA reporter Setareh Sieg, who was suspended during the Trump administration and was expected to be fired in January 2021, but was fired the day after President Joe Biden stepped down , he was reinstated “without losing salary or seniority.”
“Sieg’s case is symptomatic of a larger problem. As an agency that frequently hires foreign or foreign-educated individuals, it is troubling that USAGM does not have a more robust process for vetting employees and detecting false qualifications. Sieg’s The case raises questions about the competency and credibility of USAGM’s entire human resources organization, and the impact of this failure must be addressed,” McCall told Fox News Digital.
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House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul has been leading a years-long investigation into U.S. agencies that support media outlets such as Voice of America. (Getty Images)
Their investigation focused on accusations that Seager falsified her higher education credentials instead of earning a doctorate. in political history from a French university. Correspondence obtained by Republicans between the University of Paris and the French Embassy in the United States states that Seager received “a degree, not a PhD” in October 2021.
In February 2022, a French embassy official told the committee, “[t]This is as official as possible and very clear:Mrs.[.] [Sieg] No PhD…” according to a timeline provided by Fox News Digital.
The committee’s report also detailed the whistleblower’s claims that Seager treated at least one employee differently and hired the employee’s brother into a senior position.
It also pointed to a report by former VOA deputy director Elizabeth Robbins published before Seager was suspended, accusing her of “mishandling $950,000 by awarding exclusive source contracts to media companies favored by VOA.” government funds”.
Around the same time she was suspended, Seager joined a group of VOA journalists calling on Robbins and her supervisor to resign over allegations that their coverage of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo violated the outlet’s journalistic guidelines .
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USAGM CEO Kate Bennett disputed the committee’s claims. (Getty Images)
The report also details efforts to get Republicans to drop the investigation. For example, the report states that in July 2023, USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett bypassed employee channels and contacted McCall directly, requesting a private meeting with him and urging him to “come to a conclusion.”
Bennett argued that “an investigation into an employee is draining agency resources and limiting its ability to carry out “critical foreign policy missions,” according to the report.
However, the Republican report said she “urged an investigation into an employee as a waste of resources but ignored several points.”
“First, Seagal was not a low-level bureaucrat, but the head of VOA’s Persian service, an extremely important part of the agency and one of the keys to U.S. soft power interests in the Middle East. Seagal was able to deceive State Department background checks personnel, as well as USAGM’s security and human resources professionals, diagnosing the problem is key to preventing others from further committing such abuse, including the potential for widespread abuse,” the report states.
Third, the highly public nature of the case provides opportunities for deterrence but also creates the risk of moral hazard: if Seager is held accountable, those who also lied and wasted government funds may hesitate; but if she escapes, ultimately , identifying USAGM officials who failed to ask the right questions is also key to holding them accountable.
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House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul told Fox News Digital that the handling of Setare Seagal’s case was an example of a broader “failure.” (Getty Images)
The report praised the House Republican investigation for forcing USAGM to reopen the investigation into Seager, but criticized the agency for only sending her a “letter of reprimand.”
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However, in a statement to Fox News Digital, Bennett refuted the committee’s allegations of misconduct and said “we stand by our findings” against Seager.
“U.S. Global Media cannot comment on specific personnel matters. However, we unequivocally reject the committee’s allegations that the agency’s background investigations of employees are politicized, corrupt, or mismanaged,” Bennett said. “Further, we refute the report’s damaging mischaracterization of USAGM employees and condemn the committee’s callous attempt to denigrate hard-working public servants, including key targets of the investigation.”
“USAGM’s mission is to connect, inform and engage people around the world to support freedom and democracy, and this mission cannot be compromised by political influence. Any notion that our work is politicized is absolutely wrong,” she said.
