{"id":4148,"date":"2021-01-05T12:49:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T12:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4148"},"modified":"2021-01-05T12:49:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T12:49:41","slug":"federal-watchdog-says-substantial-likelihood-of-wrongdoing-at-us-broadcasting-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4148","title":{"rendered":"Federal watchdog says \u201csubstantial likelihood of wrongdoing\u201d at US broadcasting agency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In letters to 11 whistleblowers on Wednesday night, the US Office of Special Counsel<\/a> (OSC) \u2014 an investigative and prosecutorial government body \u2014 revealed that it had found \u201ca substantial likelihood of wrongdoing\u201d at the USAGM, which oversees four media organizations: Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With help from the Government Accountability Project<\/a> (GAP), which represents more than 20 current and former staffers at the USAGM, 11 whistleblowers sent specific complaints to the OSC over the last few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They included allegations that USAGM leadership \u201crepeatedly violated the Voice of America (VOA) firewall\u201d and \u201cengaged in gross mismanagement and abuse of authority.\u201d Further, the whistleblowers claimed leadership \u201cpressured career staff to illegally repurpose \u2026 congressionally appropriated funds and programs without notifying Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday evening, the OSC replied to these and other allegations<\/a>, noting that what the whistleblowers alleged seemed to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOSC has found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing based on the information you submitted in support of your allegations,\u201d wrote Karen Tanenbaum, an attorney with OSC\u2019s Retaliation and Disclosure Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, OSC gives any offending agency \u2014 in this case, UASGM \u2014 60 days to conduct its own probe and respond to the complaints. It\u2019s not until that investigation ends that OSC makes a final determination.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/12\/3\/22150002\/special-counsel-whistleblower-global-media<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In letters to 11 whistleblowers on Wednesday night, the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) \u2014 an investigative and prosecutorial government body \u2014 revealed that it had found \u201ca substantial likelihood of wrongdoing\u201d at the USAGM, which oversees four media organizations: Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty.<\/p>\n

With help from the Government Accountability Project (GAP), which represents more than 20 current and former staffers at the USAGM, 11 whistleblowers sent specific complaints to the OSC over the last few months.<\/p>\n

They included allegations that USAGM leadership \u201crepeatedly violated the Voice of America (VOA) firewall\u201d and \u201cengaged in gross mismanagement and abuse of authority.\u201d Further, the whistleblowers claimed leadership \u201cpressured career staff to illegally repurpose \u2026 congressionally appropriated funds and programs without notifying Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, the OSC replied to these and other allegations, noting that what the whistleblowers alleged seemed to be true.<\/p>\n

\u201cOSC has found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing based on the information you submitted in support of your allegations,\u201d wrote Karen Tanenbaum, an attorney with OSC\u2019s Retaliation and Disclosure Unit.<\/p>\n

However, OSC gives any offending agency \u2014 in this case, UASGM \u2014 60 days to conduct its own probe and respond to the complaints. It\u2019s not until that investigation ends that OSC makes a final determination.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[167,651],"class_list":["post-4148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-government","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4149,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148\/revisions\/4149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}