House committee sounds alarm on systemic 'failures' of US agency funding media abroad

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is raising alarms about a U.S. government agency responsible for broadcasting media in foreign countries.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is an independent federal office that oversees entities like Voice of America (VOA), which alone supports 48 different languages and has 354 million viewers across the globe, according to its website.

It has also been the subject of a yearslong investigation by Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans, who have alleged systematic mismanagement throughout the agency and accused it of trying to impede their probe.

In particular, the investigation has focused on Setareh Sieg, a VOA journalist who was suspended and expected to be fired under the Trump administration in early January 2021, only to be restored "with no loss of pay or seniority" the day after President Biden was sworn in, according to documents obtained by the committee. Sieg's attorney and USAGM have both pushed back on the committee's findings.

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"Sieg’s case is symptomatic of a larger issue. As an agency which routinely hires foreign or foreign-educated individuals, it is troubling that USAGM does not have more robust processes in place to vet employees and detect misrepresented credentials. Sieg’s case calls into question the competence and credibility of USAGM’s entire H.R. apparatus, and the implications of this failure must be addressed," McCaul told Fox News Digital.

Their probe has largely focused on accusations that Sieg falsified her higher education credentials rather than getting a Ph.D. in political history from a French university. Republicans obtained