A top Trump administration official held up the president’s picture while being questioned about the recent mass job cuts to the agency she leads.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NJ) hammered Kari Lake, a senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), with questions about the workforce reduction and how her agency decided to do so during a Wednesday hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Did you conduct or review a written analysis before placing most of the USAGM’s and VOA’s employees on administrative leave on March 15 before cutting off payments to USAGM grantees in March, or before announcing a reduction in force at the VOA last Friday?” Meeks asked.
Lake insisted that “these are complex questions,” but said that “we have reviewed the number of employees, the number of languages.”
But as Meeks tried to interrupt Lake to ask her if she had the report, Lake proceeded to hold up a picture of Trump.
“Most of all, what we’ve reviewed was an executive order March 14 by the man who’s in charge of the executive branch. His name is Donald Trump,” she said.
Before Meeks’ questioning, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) had noted that Lake had submitted “binders and binders of information” prior to the hearing. This led Meeks to repeatedly ask Lake if she had a record to show what they reviewed.
“I talked to a lot of people at the agency,” Lake insisted.
“Do you have a record of that?” Meeks asked.
“You can go back and look at emails. You want me to pull emails?” she responded.
“I want you to show the record of what you did, Ms. Lake. Don’t just give me something that’s not verified. Tell me, show me the record, because that’s what I hear often in the business, you have to have a record. Show me the record that you did,” Meeks pushed on.
On Friday, 1,400 USAGM positions were terminated, with hundreds losing their jobs at Voice of America (VOA), Politico reported. This came after Trump ordered dramatic reductions at the agency in a March executive order.
Meeks noted earlier in the hearing that a letter from board members fired by the Trump administration warned that “defunding” networks the U.S. sponsors in areas with less press freedom “will undermine the United States’ efforts to counter the biased efforts from America’s authoritarian competitors.”
However, the Trump administration has defended this decision, saying the job cuts are apart of efforts to cut back on waste and abuse.
Originally published on Latin Times
