Abraham Hamedeh Asks Kari Lake About Alleged Chinese 'Infiltration' Of Voice Of America

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At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Abraham Hamadeh (R-AZ) questioned Kari Lake about Chinese influence on Voice of America.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairwoman. I want to thank Chairman Bass for allowing me to wave into this committee and

00:04Ms. Lake. It's hard to say Ms. Lake. I know you as Carrie. You can call me Carrie.

00:10So does everybody in Arizona. And Carrie, for everything you had to endure in this committee

00:15hearing, especially not just here, but what you had to endure in 2022. And I know you're a fighter

00:21for the truth. We all know what happened with our elections in 2020 and 2022 and the tentacles of

00:26the Communist Chinese Party, which has just been reported by John Solomon and how they were trying

00:31to impact the 2020 election. I know FBI Director Cash Patel is trying to get to the bottom of it.

00:36It's scary that they've infiltrated so many aspects of our government and especially the voice of

00:41America. And right here in the Congress, I don't know if you knew this, but the China Daily newspaper

00:46was actually being distributed all across Congress and every single office. And I helped lead the

00:52charge to ban the China Daily newspaper from being distributed in the halls of Congress,

00:56which I'm proud of. But it concerns me that the Chinese have infiltrated the voice of America

01:02and they were having meetings at the embassy. Can you expand on what access did the Communist

01:07Chinese have within voice of America? Well, they have more say, this is sad,

01:12over editorially what VOA puts out than someone like me who's been charged with helping to oversee

01:20this agency. Because of an editorial firewall, key lead management and leadership at U.S. Agency for

01:26Global Media cannot have focus in or tell the folks what they should be covering at Voice of America.

01:35Unfortunately, the CCP can. And I read this a little bit earlier, and I don't know if I should read it

01:42again, but they literally were attending meetings at the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. And this

01:49is a report that I find rather shocking, and I mentioned it. Starting in the first decade of 2000,

01:54the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. and the leadership of VOA's Mandarin service began an annual

01:59meeting to allow embassy officials to voice their opinions about VOA's content. They even convinced

02:05the former leadership during Biden's administration to cut short an interview. They wanted the whole

02:11thing canceled. They convinced VOA leadership to cut short an interview with a whistleblower who was

02:18critical of the CCP. And this just continues. This is an article that came out, I believe it was in

02:25March. VOA's senior executives frequently traveled to China, attending state-sponsored events and meeting

02:31with Chinese embassy officials. These meetings weren't casual diplomatic exchanges. They involve

02:36soliciting feedback on VOA's programming. Congressman Hamaday, if VOA decided to run a hit piece on you,

02:45and it was full of lies, and they called you and told you they were going to run that, and you wanted

02:50to say, hey, let's clear this up because that's not true, this isn't true, and I suggest you don't run the

02:55story. They could sue you for a firewall violation. But yet, a CCP official can tell them how to run the

03:03news. It's very dangerous, and I know we know how corrupt some of these courts are, and I know that

03:08there is a big challenge right now trying to stop the authority that you have and trying to reform the

03:13VOA, and you've got to win this battle because President Trump needs this in order to make America

03:19great again. Apparently, there are judges who want to run an agency rather than be judges, and, you know,

03:25my suggestion to those judges, if they really want to run an agency, go to USAjobs.gov and apply for a job.

03:32Well, we know many of them are politicians in black robes. But, Carrie, I want to talk about

03:37after President Trump's successful strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities, you put out a post on X that had it

03:45translated his speech in Farsi. So, you were able to do that with the statutory minimums within the VOA.

03:50Yes, we were. We were, and it wasn't a scramble, as many said. It was typical breaking news where you

03:56jump in when news happens. And our team, our Persian team, were able to jump in when news broke, when the

04:04bombs hit, and we were in place ready to go when President Trump delivered his historic address.

04:09We had it broadcast on the air and digitally as well, online, and it was translated simultaneously

04:16in Farsi. Even though some people said we didn't do that, we in fact did. There's a lot of lies out

04:23there, and unfortunately, people, some of the Democrats in this room believe the lies, or they

04:27know their lies, and they want to repeat them. But we were live on the air. That is, I think, what I heard

04:32from one of the members on our team, the most people saw that tweet than any other tweet that

04:40we've ever done on VOA Farsi.

04:42Incredible. Well, thank you, Ms. Lake, for being here, and thank you for all us fighting

04:47for the truth. And in many ways, I wouldn't be here in Congress without your help and your

04:50support. Thank you again, Carrie.

04:53I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

04:54Gentleman yields back. I want to thank you, Ms. Lake, for your testimony today. At this point,

05:01we're going to do closing statements.

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