Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves nominee to oversee US Agency for Global Media

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced the nomination of a Trump administration pick — whose nonprofit organization is being investigated for possible tax violations — to lead a federal media agency with oversight of a news service that has come under increasing criticism from President Donald Trump. The 12-to-10 party-line vote came after testy debate among senators over the propriety of voting on Michael Pack’s nomination to lead the US Agency for Global Media while his organization is being scrutinized by the District of Columbia’s attorney general. At one point, the committee went into a closed session at the request of Democratic senators so they could speak about the controversial nomination privately. The agency oversees Voice of America and other government-funded news outlets.

Democratic senators have vigorously protested the nomination of Pack to the normally obscure post, one the president has taken a particular interest in as his administration steps up its criticism of Voice of America. The news agency is federally funded but operates independently, yet the White House has accused the outlet of promoting Chinese government propaganda in its coronavirus coverage and threatened to bar its White House bureau chief from traveling on Air Force Two. Apparently, in a private lunch with Republican senators recently, President Trump derisively called Voice of America the “voice of the Soviet Union” and called it “communists."