âť“WHAT HAPPENED: House Oversight is demanding answers from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over years of alleged security breaches, visa abuses, and insider corruption, citing national security risks and ties to foreign adversaries.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: USAGM, Kari Lake, James Comer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and the Biden and Trump administrations.
đź“ŤWHEN & WHERE: Letter dated June 17, 2025; Washington, D.C.; oversight spans back over five years of agency operations.
đź’¬KEY QUOTE: “USAGM is vulnerable to exploitation by foreign spies.”
🎯IMPACT: The House is investigating allegations that USAGM improperly issued visas, mismanaged funds, and allowed thousands of unauthorized personnel to access sensitive systems, possibly compromising U.S. national security.
Congressional Republicans have launched a sweeping investigation into the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which houses the controversial Voice of America outlet, citing systemic national security failures, corruption, and visa fraud spanning multiple administrations.
A June 17 letter to Kari Lake, the agency’s Senior Advisor, outlines grave concerns over using foreign nationals, falsified background checks, and insider enrichment schemes involving millions in federal grant dollars.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Chairman James Comer and Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, detailed years of documented misconduct, including improper vetting, falsified Social Security numbers, and personnel with access to sensitive systems who were never properly cleared. Many have since “disappeared into U.S. society,” raising questions about the potential infiltration of the federal government by foreign agents.
USAGM’s use of J-1 cultural exchange visas instead of proper I visas for journalists is also under scrutiny. Lawmakers allege that this practice violates federal policy and creates a backdoor path to permanent residency for foreign nationals working in journalism—an abuse that may have exposed the U.S. to foreign espionage operations. The letter demands documentation for every visa issued and clearance held over the past five years.
Financial records show that grantees like Radio Free Asia and the Open Technology Fund steered millions in contracts to entities with ties to their own advisory boards, in clear violation of federal conflict-of-interest rules. Additional complaints include the misuse of federal funds for political content and the concealment of journalists’ locations in high-risk zones—conditions that reportedly worsened under the Biden government after the rollback of Trump-era reforms.
Trump recently issued an executive order dismantling non-statutory elements of the USAGM, describing the agency as a “hubris-filled rogue operation” aligned with leftist media. The letter requests a trove of internal documents, visa logs, grant records, and settlement agreements by July 1. With U.S. taxpayer dollars and global credibility on the line, lawmakers appear poised to force major structural reform on an agency once intended to champion freedom abroad.
06.17.2025 Usagm Letter by Raheem Kassam on Scribd
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