ProTrump shakeups continue at Voice of America

WASHINGTON — The head of U. S. funded international broadcasting is pressing ahead with his shakeup of the Voice of America and sister outlets by naming new leaders for two of its main networks and moving to defund one of the federal government’s top democracy promotion initiatives.

The flurry of moves by President Trump’s handpicked chief of the U. S. Agency for Global Media Michael Pack come only a month before Trump leaves office and raise new concerns about the agency’s direction in the administration’s final weeks. Presidentelect Joe Biden and his team have pledged a full review of Pack’s actions and could replace him shortly after inauguration, but it’s not entirely clear whether his personnel decisions could be immediately reversed.

Democrats and some Republicans have accused Pack of trying to turn VOA and its sister networks into proTrump propaganda outlets, and he is under a court order not to terminate employees that he has suspended since taking over the operation in June.

Despite those potential reversals, Pack has forged ahead with changes and on Friday, less than 10 days after appointing a longtime critic of U. S. government broadcasting to lead the Voice of America, he announced the appointment of two conservative voices to lead Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Marti. Pack announced that RFE/

RL would be led by Ted Lipien, a former VOA official who had more recently run a blog promoting the views of disaffected staffers primarily objecting to alleged liberal bias and a lack of conservative views in its programming. Pack also announced that Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a former Breitbart News and Washington Times journalist, would run the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.

In addition to those appointments, Pack informed the Open Technology Fund that he had begun procedures to strip it of its federal funding for at least three years, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The OTF provides technology to assist democracy advocates in repressive countries around the world.

Shortly after assuming his position in June, Pack dismissed the OTF board, whose members sued and won a court order against their dismissals.