Michael Pack: Trump-appointed head of global media agency waives Biden’s request

Michael Pack: Trump-appointed head of global media agency waives Biden’s request

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Pack, a conservative documentary filmmaker who became CEO in June, has been widely criticized for his administration of USAGM’s international news services, including Voice of America.

“The new government has requested my resignation,” Pack wrote in a letter to the team.

“The USAGM and the CEO position must be non-partisan,” said Pack. “As such, every day, I was focused exclusively on reorienting the agency toward its mission. I sought, above all, to help the agency share America’s history with the world in an objective and unbiased manner.”

In one of his last acts, Pack on Tuesday announced new boards of directors for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, three other news organizations under the supervision of the USAGM.

Members are conservative radio host Blanquita Cullum; Jonathan Alexander, conservative and anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel; pro-Trump filmmaker Amanda Milius; Roger Simon, who, according to his LinkedIn, writes for the Epoch Times, the pro-Trump newspaper with links to Falun Gong; and Christian Whiton, a member of the Center of National Interest who served in the Trump and Bush governments.

Pack recently made headlines when he told the VOA White House reporter that she “was not authorized” to ask Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a question. The reporter, Patsy Widakuswara, was subsequently demoted twice, without explanation.

Since Pack’s arrival at the USAGM, he “tried to cover up the primacy of the journalistic mission: both figuratively and literally,” said David Kligerman, the former VOA general counsel until he was allegedly forced to leave by Pack last month. “On his first day, he painted an epigraph (from his predecessor John Lansing) celebrating the First Amendment and the sacred duty of journalists to hold public officials accountable.”

In December, the federal watchdog group Office of Special Counsel said it “found a substantial likelihood of transgression” during an agency investigation, which was prompted by a complaint filed by six senior officials who alleged that Pack had abused his authority.

Kligerman officially said what many others at VOA in particular echo – that Pack has since “waged a war against Agency journalists and editorial independence”, including firing all network heads and rescinding the agency’s firewall regulation aimed at isolate it from political interference, refusing to “renew J1 visas for our journalists for purely nativist reasons, forcing them to leave the country; and dismissing journalists pretextually for covering matters perceived to be harmful to the administration”.

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