Trump's VOA chief paid 'extravagantly' to investigate critics: Watchdog

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/19/ [login to see] /trumps-voa-chief-paid-extravagantly-to-investigate-critics-watchdog
Former President Donald Trump's pick to oversee the parent agency of the Voice of America paid a prestigious private law firm so extravagantly to investigate his own agency's senior executive officials that it constituted a "waste or gross waste of government resources," a federal watchdog concluded Friday.

Michael Pack, the former CEO of VOA-parent U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO, awarded the contract without any bidding process to the politically connected Richmond, Va., law firm McGuireWoods, which ultimately received more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money.

Friday's report from the U.S. State Department's Inspector General found the service the law firm provided "were duplicative of existing resources and involved the payment of billable hours far in excess of the salary of federal employees who can perform the same work." The inspector general also found "serious violations of federal law and regulation" in the payment of a subcontractor without any authorization.

Neither Pack nor two representatives of McGuireWoods replied to efforts requesting comment on the findings on Friday.