Congressman Hamadeh Questions Lake on Chinese Infiltration of Voice of America

WASHINGTON D.C. - On Wednesday, Congressman Abraham Hamadeh (AZ-08) welcomed fellow Arizonan, Senior Advisor for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Kari Lake, to Capitol Hill. 

Advisor Lake offered compelling testimony during the House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing entitled Spies, Lies, and Mismanagement: Examining the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Downfall.

Congressman Hamadeh had the opportunity to question Advisor Lake on the gross mismanagement of the Agency and the Trump Administration's plans for much-needed reforms.

Specifically, Congressman Hamadeh expressed concern that the Chinese Communist Party had infiltrated Voice of America and asked what access exactly members of the party had to it.

Ms. Lake explained that because of so-called firewall language that Congress put into the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) makes it impossible for Agency management to “prevent biased, anti-American, or rogue reporting,” the Chinese Communist Party has more say over what is broadcasted than a U.S. government official.

Ms. Lake, with decades of experience as a journalist for mainstream media outlets, has been tasked by President Trump to reform the Agency that she described as “largely incompetent, corrupt, biased, and a threat to America’s national security and standing in the world.”

Ms. Lake thanked Congressman Hamadeh for his success at putting an end to the distribution of Chinese Communist Party-controlled propaganda in House facilities. The ban was ordered by House Administration Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil (WI-01), and Rep. John Moolenaar (MI-02), Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party following the introduction by Congressman Hamadeh of H.Res.100, which would have banned the material.

On March 14, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order titled Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, which directed the elimination of all non-statutory functions and to reduce the Agency to its statutory minimum. 

Watch the testimony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j99Wn4kZtM

Ms. Lake’s testimony included the following highlights:

• Specifically, individuals working as journalists and technicians, many of them foreign nationals, were given high-level (Tier 3 and Tier 5) security access to government facilities and information technology (IT) systems, via inadequate and bogus suitability determinations. This access was based on falsified security documents, false or notional Social Security numbers (SSNs), and otherwise improperly processed fingerprints. 

• Extensive corrective action was taken by Trump Administration officials who ran USAGM between June 2020 and January 2021, but the Biden Administration officials immediately reversed most, if not all, of these safeguards upon taking office. 

• Under the Biden Administration, USAGM relapsed into past practices, including, but not limited to: Records, including SSNs, being falsified or replaced with notional placeholders; fingerprints and fingerprint forms not being submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for basic background investigations; and incomplete or falsified SF-86’s and other suitability determination documents used under delegated OPM authority to grant access to Tier 3 and Tier 5 level national security sensitive positions.