Voice of America overseer spent $2 million investigating employees, complaint alleges
Source: Washington Post
The head of Voice of America’s parent agency hired a law firm at a rate of about $500 an hour and spent $2 million in taxpayer funds to compile personnel dossiers on managers he had targeted for removal, according to a complaint filed Tuesday.
The accusation, contained in a whistleblower complaint, is the latest claim of impropriety against Michael Pack, a conservative Trump appointee who has sought to reshape VOA and four other government-funded international news networks since becoming their overseer in June.
During his short tenure, Pack has generated controversy by removing veteran managers, accusing VOA of harboring foreign spies and seeking to influence VOA’s news coverage, despite regulations barring political appointees from doing so. A federal judge in November prohibited him from violating the editorial “firewall” and interfering in editorial decisions.
In addition, the District of Columbia’s attorney general sued Pack earlier this month, alleging that he had enriched himself by funneling more than $4 million to the private filmmaking company he formerly ran through a nonprofit entity that he also controlled
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By Paul Farhi
1/19/2021, 6:18:00 p.m.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/voice-of-america-overseer-spent-2-million-investigating-employees-complaint-alleges/2021/01/19/fa0a40b4-5a87-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html
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