Voice of America reassigns White House reporter who tried to ask Mike Pompeo a question

Patsy Widakuswara, who covers the White House, was reassigned on Monday hours after attempting to engage with Pompeo, who also stayed for a question-and-answer session with VOA director Robert Reilly, in which no public question was allowed and the secretary was allowed to brag about administrative policies without any verification. When Pompeo refused to answer him, Widakuswara turned to Reilly and asked why he had not presented the secretary with questions from the VOA reporters, according to those in attendance who spoke to CNN.

“At a time when the world has already seen an attack on our democratic institutions, the Trump administration has chosen to send another message – with an attack on the First Amendment,” said Zeke Miller, president of the WHCA, who spoke on behalf. of the organization’s board of directors.

“He did so at Voice of America, a taxpayer-backed service commissioned by Congress to distribute uncensored journalism to the world to demonstrate the freedoms – especially freedom of the press – that the United States hopes all nations will emulate, ”Miller continued. . “VOA’s reassignment of Patsy Widakuswara for doing her job, asking questions, is an affront to the very ideals Secretary of State Pompeo discussed in his speech on Monday.”

The top Democrat and Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in a joint statement that they “were extremely frustrated to hear Voice of America’s senior White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara be demoted from office after questioning Secretary Pompeo about last week’s attack on the Capitol. “

“In the absence of a legitimate reason for this decision, which was not provided, we believe it should be reinstated,” said President Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York, and senior member Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas.

“We are in the United States of America – we are not punishing our journalists for seeking answers to their questions. A free and fair press is at the heart of our Constitution and our democracy,” lawmakers said.

According to a statement, the committee contacted VOA and its parent agency, the US Agency for World Media, “but received no information as to why Widakuswara was demoted.”

Widakuswara declined to comment for this story. A VOA spokesperson told CNN they do not comment on internal staffing issues. When asked whether Pompeo had comments on or requested Widakuswara’s reassignment, the State Department referred questions to VOA and USAGM.

In contrast, last year Pompeo berated China for seeking to silence American journalists in Hong Kong.

“It recently came to my attention that the Chinese government threatened to interfere with the work of American journalists in Hong Kong,” Pompeo said at the time. “These journalists are members of a free press, not propaganda cadres, and their valuable reporting educates Chinese citizens and the world.”

The controversy is just the latest clash between members of the press and the secretary, known to berate journalists, and especially women, for asking questions he doesn’t like, sometimes using profanity, as he did with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly.

The Government Accountability Project, a group representing VOA whistleblowers, said in a January 8 letter that the speech violated the statutory firewall that protects VOA journalists and editors from foreign political interference, describing it as “a violation of law, rules and policy”.

VOA staff members who spoke on condition of anonymity told CNN they were angry, saying they believed Pompeo and VOA management had violated the agency’s journalistic integrity. More than one expressed disgust at the use by the secretary of VOA and journalists in the public “as a propaganda prop” for the speech and questions and answers.

A VOA source said his biggest disappointment was Reilly’s inability to defend the institution after Pompeo diminished it in his speech, describing VOA as “demeaning America” ​​in the past and now suffering from a culture of “censorship, revival, political correctness, all of that.” points in one direction – authoritarianism, disguised as moral justice. “

“VOA did not fail yesterday; our director failed,” the source said.

“ Morally wrong ”

Pompeo claimed that it was “morally wrong” for VOA staff to object to his speech, which the staff said was arranged by Elizabeth Robbins, a recent State Department transplant who was appointed Deputy Director of the VOA at the end of December when she had no journalism experience.

Pack, a documentary maker who took over as CEO in June and is the subject of a DC Attorney General’s criminal investigation for self-dealing and self-enrichment, has appointed Reilly, former VOA director and writer. conservative, to lead the VOA in December.

After Reilly told her White House reporter she didn’t know how to behave, sources in the crowd outside the VOA auditorium said Widakuswara told her, “There are so many questions that we want to know, and you didn’t ask them. “

Reilly told him, “you are not allowed,” to which Widakuswara replied, “I’m a journalist and I get paid to ask questions, and none of those questions you asked.”

“You are down!” Reilly said, before Robbins intervened, saying, “OK, we’re done. Thank you.”

Since Pack’s arrival at USAGM, he “has attempted to whitewash the primacy of journalistic mission: both figurative and literal,” said David Kligerman, the former general counsel for VOA until he was allegedly kicked out by Pack last month. “On the first day, he painted over an epigraph (from his predecessor John Lansing) celebrating the First Amendment and the sacred duty of journalists to hold public officials accountable.”