“Today the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia (OAG) informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it is actively investigating a nonprofit organization, the Public Media Lab, run by Michael Pack, President Trump’s nominee for CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media,” Sen. Bob Menendez, the committee’s ranking member, said in a statement.
“The OAG is investigating whether Mr. Pack’s use of his nonprofit’s funds was unlawful and whether he improperly used those funds to benefit himself,” the New Jersey senator continued.
David A. Mayorga, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, confirmed the investigation but declined to comment further.
Trump has been critical of Voice of America, saying in April that “things they say are disgusting toward our country.”
He’s also touted Pack as his solution and has pushed for his confirmation.
“Michael Pack would get in and he’d do a great job, but he’s been waiting now for two years. Can’t get him approved,” Trump said last month.
The Senate Foreign relations committee had been scheduled to vote on Pack’s nomination on Thursday but that vote was canceled.
Menendez said the attorney general is also requesting documents from the Foreign Affairs Committee after the committee reviewed public records related to Pack’s business dealings following his confirmation hearing last year.
That review, “revealed that the Public Media Lab received several millions of dollars in grants and transferred those funds exclusively to Mr. Pack’s for-profit film production company,” Menendez said.
CNN has requested comment from the White House and Pack.
Menendez went on to criticize Pack for stonewalling the committee’s requests and the committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho.
“For nearly eight months, Mr. Pack has refused to provide the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with documents it requested that get to the heart of the matter that the OAG is now investigating, or to correct false statements he made to the IRS… Chairman Risch never should have put Mr. Pack up for a committee vote in light of Mr. Pack’s refusal to come clean with the Senate on his vetting issues.”
CNN has reached out to Risch’s office for comment.
Previously, several sources within the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the USAGM, have privately expressed concern over Pack’s nomination.
There is also concern Pack will turn what has been considered America’s voice abroad toward a decidedly more pro-Trump bent, though the agencies under the BBG are independent of the presidential administration, with the board acting as firewall. Several staffers at the agency told CNN they plan to leave if Pack is confirmed.
Should Pack be confirmed, he’d have more unilateral power over the agency because of a provision enacted in the last weeks of the Obama administration that would disband the bipartisan board in favor of an advisory board, which supporters saw as a firewall between the administration and the agency. Proponents promoted the move as one to make the organization more efficient.
CNN’s Caroline Kelly and Hadas Gold contributed to this report.
Source : CNN
