At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) questioned Kari Lake about the employment of journalists on J-1 visas.
00:00I was glancing through it, and just FYI, I'm going to keep reading it, but I don't actually see a request for a meeting with Ms. Lake in the letter, as was referenced.
00:09I see, bring to her attention, but no request for a meeting in this letter.
00:13But I'll let you know if that changes as I read through it.
00:16Representative Perry is now recognized.
00:18Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
00:18Ms. Lake, would you care to answer the question further, the last question further?
00:22Do you want to expound on any of that?
00:23Well, I think it is difficult to meet with people when they're suing you.
00:27It just isn't advised.
00:28And if any attorney would tell you, you can't sit down and meet with somebody who's launched malicious lawsuits against the agency, naming me in those lawsuits.
00:38So it would be ill-advised to do that, obviously.
00:41You know, we do not have a current grant agreement with RFE, Radio Free Europe, which was started, you know, many, many years ago as a CIA operation.
00:52And we don't have a current grant agreement with them.
00:55We've been asking to work with them, negotiating a grant agreement, and they refuse.
01:00We offered a grant to them, and they refused to even mark it up and redline it and send it back to us.
01:05So we don't have an approved financial plan.
01:08They won't tell us where they're spending their money.
01:10We've got an audit going on right now, and they've stonewalled and prevented us from getting any access to their financial books.
01:17Again, we pay them, and they do not tell us where the money is going.
01:22I think that's a problem.
01:23I think the American people deserve to know where their money is going.
01:26And so we're working to make sure we get that.
01:28Interestingly, in the 11th hour last night, right before I crawled into bed, we found out that they're finally going to give a little bit of information to our auditors.
01:38I thought it was really interesting timing because they didn't want me to sit up here and say they refuse to let us look at their books.
01:44They refuse to let us see where the American taxpayer dollars are going once it's getting funneled into RFE-RL.
01:51And if they really, you know, we've paid them every month, by the way.
01:55So if they're not protecting their journalists, it's on them.
01:59If they're not putting out broadcasting, it's on them.
02:02We have paid them every month because the judges ordered us to.
02:05And so it's on them if they're not putting out broadcasting.
02:08Ms. Lake, this is clearly an agency that is run amok.
02:11I wouldn't characterize it as treason, but it sounds like it's certainly seditious.
02:16Are you familiar with the McGuire-Woods report?
02:18I'm very familiar, and it's in one of these binders, and it was an incredible report looking at some of the mismanagement, misuse of funds, and other outrageous things that were happening at this agency.
02:31To that end, I just want to inform you that I struggled mightily probably for about six months in this committee and in Congress to have that entered into the congressional record
02:42so that the American people could see the misuses of their money and the seditious activity by an agency they were paying for.
02:50And I think as part of that, 40 percent of the workforce at that time was improperly vetted,
02:55and USAGM lost their ability to conduct security clearances, but continued to conduct them for 10 years after which they had lost their ability to conduct security clearances,
03:06and that the use of J-1 visas to hire foreign journalists and technical staff without systematic review resulted in propaganda that was favorable to adversaries and enemies,
03:19as opposed to the United States of America, with American tax dollars, paid for with American tax dollars.
03:27Now, somebody might say, well, that was a mistake, and yeah, that was a misstep, but it seems to me this was an orchestrated plan by someone at USAGM,
03:36and so my question begins with, have we determined from the McGuire-Woods report or any of your investigation at this point who, by name, authorized this activity over that long period of time,
03:50and these people, antithetical to the United States of America, who did that, and what accountability has been put in place?
03:58What prosecutions have happened as a result of that? What accountability has taken place, if any?
04:05Sadly, there hasn't been any accountability. That McGuire-Woods report was done in the waning days of President Trump's first term.
04:14Michael Pack was the CEO, and he helped make that possible. He saw, the first day on the job, he got dropped on his desk, this issue with
04:231,500 employees had not been properly screened, and he said, this is a real big problem. ODNI was saying, you've got a serious problem over there.
04:32You guys are freelancing on your security screenings, and you're allowing dangerous people into our country, and so they got busy investigating how this was happening.
04:41They put people on administrative leave, and before they could do anything and fire people, people that were being investigated,
04:52when the Trump administration ended and Biden went into office and replaced the leadership at this agency, they rehired all of those people back.
05:02And gave them settlements of $650,000.
05:05I've got a limited amount of time. Of course, this is completely outrageous, but why should anybody in this country, anybody in this committee,
05:12anybody in Congress believe that this agency, this operation, should continue to exist and won't return to its former operations and activities
05:22beyond the Trump administration and beyond your tenure? Why should anyone believe that?
05:27They shouldn't believe it, and I think this is why President Trump wants to eliminate the agency.
05:31The agency itself is not needed. It's proven that it does not know how to manage and does not know how to be respectful of this country
05:38and the American taxpayers' dollars. And so I think President Trump is absolutely right in eliminating this agency.
05:44We can roll in things that are valuable, that are worthwhile, bring it under the Department of State,
05:49where it once was, by the way, Voice of America, back when it was effective, back when many of you talk about the glory days of Voice of America,
05:56it was under the Department of State, where there were guardrails on what the story of America was being told.
06:03It wasn't anti-American. It was in line with our foreign policy, and I think that's where it probably should end up.
06:09Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
06:11Gentlemen, yields, and your time expired. Chair now recognizes the representative.
