Perry Hammers Biden Official: You Directed Staff ‘To Avoid Calling Hamas And Its Members Terrorists’

last year

On Tuesday, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) questioned U.S. Agency on Global Media CEO Amanda Bennett on Hamas during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

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00:00minority and we'll begin with Mr. Perry first for five minutes. Thank you Mr.

00:04Chairman. Ms. Bennett, I'm sure you're probably aware that the oversight of

00:11your operation has been something that of great bipartisan interest for this

00:16committee for some time, active for years now, and I can't say that we're openly

00:23thrilled about the cooperation from your predecessors and we hope it's better

00:28under your tenure here. Issues include, as you know, decades long

00:36security lapses, a partisan bias, improper hiring practices, and abuse of visa

00:43programs, which are very concerning to us, very concerning. We've got a wide open

00:48border, known terrorists coming through, criminals, and our national security is

00:54at stake and the abuse of visa programs and the lack of fidelity regarding

00:59security clearance is problematic to us and so you'll have to forgive us if we

01:04remain skeptical about USAGM's competence and trustworthiness. Mr.

01:09Kappas, your eloquent talk made us think about the voice of America and USAGM of

01:16days past but not of days that we've seen recently and we'd like to change

01:22that. Clearly put, and simply put, you're to serve the long-range interest of the

01:30United States, of the United States of America and its citizens. During your

01:35tenure, ma'am, as director, according to various VOA reporters, you and other

01:40agency officials halted a live interview with a known Chinese dissident after

01:45Beijing allegedly complained to the State Department and then VOA fired the

01:51journalist conducting the interview. That's the side of the story I got. I'm

01:55sure you have something else and I'm interested in hearing it but what also

01:59concerns me is the VOAU CCP talking points to describe the PRC's COVID-19

02:05response efforts stating, and I quote, from Asia to Europe, South America to

02:10Africa, China is providing or has pledged humanitarian assistance in the form of

02:15donations or medical expertise, unquote, which might be the right thing to do if

02:20you also include the fact that it's very likely, and it's been known for

02:23some time and finally admitted, that the likely location of the release of the

02:29virus is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That might be at least a

02:33counterbalance but we're not here to do Beijing's bidding for sure and certainly

02:38not use the taxpayers money to do that.

02:43I'm wondering, and this is another subject but along the same line, do you

02:49ma'am consider Hamas as a terrorist organization? Is Hamas a terrorist

02:54organization? I'm a head of a federal agency. I know ma'am you are. I will

03:01accept the definition that's given by the United States which is designated

03:05Hamas as a terrorist organization. Okay, so Hamas is a terrorist organization, you

03:09agree, and therefore its members are terrorists, yet seeing a memo, an internal

03:15VOA guidance after the October 7th attack by Hamas directed VOA staff to

03:21avoid calling Hamas and its member terrorist except in quotes. Why would

03:26that be? That was a personal opinion by someone that circulated around. It was

03:31not by any means the policy. The policy is to be careful about the use of the

03:36word terrorist with Hamas or any other group, but to use it as it is appropriate.

03:40And this is one situation where artificial intelligence really enabled

03:45us to shed light on an important situation in response to letters from

03:49both sides of Congress. We used artificial intelligence to look

03:54through all our languages and look at them. That's great ma'am, I appreciate that, but let's

03:59just drill down on that a little bit. So Hamas is a terrorist organization by

04:04the definition of the United States government, you agree, therefore its

04:07members are terrorists, and you're saying you're using artificial intelligence to

04:12determine when it's appropriate. So tell me when it's not appropriate. No sir,

04:16you said we used artificial intelligence to determine all the instances in which

04:21we did use the word terrorist in describing Hamas. We used it frequently,

04:25we sent a graph of all the instances to the members who wrote the letters to us,

04:30we have used it frequently, we've used in quotes, we've used it out of quotes, we've

04:33used it... When does it go in quotes and when does it go out of quotes? There's

04:37very widely used standards as to how it's used, and people, the

04:43journalists are using their own determination as to whether or not it's

04:46appropriate to use it in quotes or not quotes, but we use it in both ways.

04:50But the journalists work for you, and you work for the United States citizens, and Hamas is a

04:56terrorist organization designated by the United States of America who attacked

04:59Israel, and the free world or the world that wishes to be free is

05:06counting on you to call the balls and strikes, not equivocate whether Hamas is

05:11a terrorist organization that slaughtered Jewish individuals without

05:16cause. And that is why many of us have pause about funding your organization,

05:22because if we can't count on you to have the correct judgment regarding such an

05:26egregious occurrence, well, the American taxpayers don't want to pay for that.

05:32I yield. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the ranking member for his five minutes.

Perry Hammers Biden Official: You Directed Staff ‘To Avoid Calling Hamas And Its Members Terrorists’

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