International Broadcasting Act's Mandate at Issue in Court Review of USAGM's Purge
Two members of a three-judge D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel appeared to side Friday with the Open Technology Fund during oral argument on its lawsuit against U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack. The court temporarily stayed…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Pack’s bid to purge grantee OTF’s leadership in July, which got scrutiny from congressional Democrats (see 2006240054). OTF lawyer Gregory Beck argued the International Broadcasting Act that sets out USAGM’s mandate doesn’t authorize Pack to make the sorts of leadership changes at OTF that he has attempted because the law didn’t specifically create the entity. DOJ lawyer Gerard Sinzdak countered that USAGM’s Radio Free Asia incubated OTF, and the agency then asked Congress to allow it to be spun off, meaning it’s “clearly” an organization Congress had in mind when it wrote the IBA. Judges Merrick Garland and Cornelia Pillard focused at times on OTF’s bylaws and how they set out USAGM’s authority over the nonprofit versus whether the IBA allows USAGM to have the control Pack attempted to assert. Senior Judge David Sentelle appeared to sympathize with USAGM’s argument that OTF’s incubation within Radio Free Asia clearly shows it’s governed by IBA’s mandate. Pack has repeatedly drawn scrutiny from Capitol Hill, including when he defied a House Foreign Affairs Committee subpoena to testify last month (see 2009240060). Six senior USAGM officials recently filed a whistleblower complaint with the State Department’s inspector general and U.S. Office of Special Counsel, claiming they had faced retaliation for noting their concerns with Pack’s abuses of authority.