Liberal commentator Rachel Maddow didn’t add anything to her retweet of the story about Donald Trump appointee Michael Pack‘s scorched-earth 6-month tenure as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
Maddow evidently felt that the 145-page report, fueled by numerous whistleblower complaints, and the NPR story detailing its findings (“a litany of abuses substantiated by federal investigation”) spoke for itself.
Maddow did pull a quote from the NPR article to caption her amplification of the story. Maddow pulled this:
“The report, sent to the White House and Congressional leaders earlier this month, found that the Trump appointee repeatedly abused the powers of his office, broke laws and regulations, and engaged in gross mismanagement.”
"The report, sent to the White House and Congressional leaders earlier this month, found that the Trump appointee repeatedly abused the powers of his office, broke laws and regulations, and engaged in gross mismanagement."https://t.co/PVoPjaOxT9
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) May 21, 2023
It may strike one as surprising that Maddow didn’t choose the following quote, which speaks to the exhaustive coverage and impact of the report:
“This report is remarkable in its breadth and depth and detail of the wrongdoing that was underway at these agencies in the last six months of the Trump administration,” says David Seide, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit public interest law firm which has represented more than 30 whistleblowers at USAGM, VOA and its sister networks since Pack took office. “It just takes one’s breath away.”
[NOTE: The Government Accountability Project, established in 1977, protects whistleblowers throughout the federal government.]
The report — a “Review of Management Actions June 2020 – January 2021” was put together by outside consultants hired by USAGM and endorsed by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. It was shared with Congress and the White House earlier this month.
According to the report, Pack employed an arsenal of executive weapons as he engaged in ideological warfare to purge Trump detractors and resisters from independent media outlets.
This allegedly included releasing dossiers compiled on noncompliant journalists to right wing media operators, dubiously moving budget appropriations to private contractors, cutting funding along ideological lines, stark retaliation against whistleblowers, and “gross mismanagement.”
Veteran journalist and former Voice of America chief Amanda Bennett, who was sworn in as CEO of USAGM in December of 2022, authorized the transmission of the report by Acting Deputy General Counsel James McLaren. Bennett signed a letter confirming the report was substantially completed before her tenure.
