The federal agency in charge of nearly $1 billion in funding for government broadcasting sought to cover up improper activities by a fired Voice of America manager who was rehired under the Biden administration, according to a three-year investigation by a House oversight panel.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee stated in a new report that the U.S. Agency for Global Media, known as USAGM, engaged in corrupt practices related to the vetting of Setareh Derakhshesh Sieg, a director of the Voice of America’s Persian news network.

Ms. Sieg was fired in the closing days of the Trump administration but rehired a day after President Biden took office.

The report accuses USAGM of attempting to cover up its mishandling of the case but failing as a result of persistent congressional oversight.

The report stated that the media agency failed to investigate internal VOA whistleblowers’ complaints that Ms. Sieg, who remains a manager, lied about receiving a doctorate from France’s Sorbonne and misspent VOA funds.

The French government confirmed that Ms. Sieg never received the doctorate, the report said.

The House report confirms reporting on the case of Ms. Sieg first disclosed by The Washington Times in February 2021.

Internal VOA sources have described Ms. Sieg as sympathetic to Iran’s Islamist theocracy and stated that as a manager she skewed VOA reports in favor of the Tehran government.

Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas Republican and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Ms. Sieg should be removed from her VOA post immediately.

Acting VOA director Yolanda Lopez resigned in September amid the House investigation.

The report quotes Ms. Lopez as telling congressional investigators that she was ordered to reinstate Ms. Sieg from administrative leave because the action was needed to “protect” USAGM.

USAGM chief executive Amanda Bennett said the agency cannot comment on specific personnel matters.

“However, we unequivocally reject the committee’s allegations that the agency’s investigation of an employee’s background was politicized, corrupt or mismanaged in any way,” Ms. Bennett said.

The agency also rebutted what it called “damaging mischaracterizations of USAGM employees set forth in the report.

In a statement, Ms. Bennett said the agency also would “condemn the committee’s callous attempts to malign hardworking civil servants, including the main subject of the investigation.”

The agency mission cannot be “swayed by political influence,” Ms. Bennett said, adding that “any notion that our work has been politicized is categorically false.”

The agency conducted a thorough investigation and stands by its findings, she said.

Ms. Sieg declined to respond to an email request for comment. Her lawyer, Mark Zaid, rejected the report’s findings as biased.

“The committee’s one-sided report continues an unexplained vendetta that has spanned two administrations against Setareh Sieg, a dedicated journalist who has devoted years of service to the U.S. government,” Mr. Zaid said.

“While it is difficult to address a 68-page report in a short statement, there are many incomplete, misinterpreted and defamatory conclusions.”

Mr. Zaid said he agreed with the report’s conclusion that USAGM mishandled the investigation of Ms. Sieg from the beginning by interfering with her right to counsel and denying due process.

“The only reason I have not sued him is because he has congressional immunity,” the lawyer added.

Mr. McCaul had a different take.

“For years, Sieg misrepresented her credentials and cultivated a culture of fear and dysfunction while she abused taxpayer dollars for lavish personal trips and contracts for friends,” he said.

“Unfortunately, Sieg’s case is the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

The committee’ 73-page report said efforts to uncover details of the mishandling of the matter are continuing. USAGM officials declined to make Ms. Sieg available to the committee for its investigation.

“The committee’s work to expose this sort of corruption at USAGM does not end with this report,” the report said.

Mr. McCaul said U.S. broadcasters, with a budget request of $950 million for fiscal 2025, conduct important work involving great power competition.

“I am extremely concerned about the agency’s serious investigative blunders despite the alarming complaints piled against Sieg,” he said.

Democrats who criticized USAGM under the Trump administration “have gone silent” instead of working to fix the problems at U.S. broadcasters, he said.

Ms. Bennett is criticized in the House report for lobbying Congress to close the Sieg investigation without resolving the whistleblower complaints.

The House committee’s report said USAGM was guilty of a “stark failure of employee vetting” that highlights longstanding concerns about poor security at official U.S. broadcasters.

“They have also shown that basic administrative and management functions can and have become tainted – and unduly influenced – by political biases and groupthink,” the report said.

“As a result, top level executives at USAGM failed to acknowledge wrongdoing even after internal whistleblowers, Congress, and a foreign government not only cried foul, but exposed credible evidence of corruption.”

The report said Ms. Sieg used taxpayer funds at VOA for personal travel, and “falsified her educational credentials to obtain high-level employment.” She also allegedly engaged in favoritism at VOA that unfairly benefitted some employees over others.

On the rehiring of Ms. Sieg, the report said USAGM has failed to justify the decision despite serious allegations of impropriety being left unresolved.

“The committee’s investigation of Sieg’s reinstatement has revealed absent and poor leadership at the highest levels of USAGM, evident from the agency’s poorly rationalized decision to reinstate Ms. Sieg, and by its unwillingness to reconsider that decision, and take serious disciplinary action, in light of new and damning evidence,” the report said.

Financial issues included Ms. Sieg’s role in allowing favored employees to collect excessive overtime pay in violation of VOA policy. She also is accused of authorizing an unqualified contract producer to spend tens of thousands of taxpayer funds on travel that did little to benefit the mission of reporting news.

The allegations were first raised in a Jan. 5, 2021, report by then-VOA Deputy Director Elizabeth Robbins, who suspended and proposed removing Ms. Seig from VOA.

The report was “detailed, specific, and contained formal findings that thoroughly justified Sieg’s removal from her senior position,” the House report said.

“It is troubling that, faced with clear evidence of corruption and mismanagement, USAGM management failed to follow through on Elizabeth Robbins’ decision to terminate Ms. Sieg, which has since been vindicated,” the report said.

For more than three years, USAGM failed to cooperate with the committee’s investigation and instead lobbied Congress to scuttle the probe.

“At worst, however, it reveals a deliberate effort to protect an insider who had personal relationships with, and was politically aligned with, the senior officials who should have been impartially supervising her,” the report said.

The panel discovered that Ms. Sieg did not study international relations as she had claimed nor did she receive a degree from the Sorbonne. Her degree was from Universite Paris 7, a separate institution.

USAGM issued a letter of reprimand to Ms. Sieg in what the committee report said was “the most minor of slaps on the wrist.”

“Sieg has, therefore, escaped accountability, aided and abetted by a gullible bureaucracy which seemed at all times to buy her questionable explanations and even go out of its way to assist her,” the report said.

VOA sought to portray Ms. Seig’s rehiring as a blow for the radio’s political independence instead of recognizing the problems, the report said.

Mr. Zaid also is quoted in the report as saying his client was “targeted for political reasons,” a conclusion the committee report disputed.

The committee recommended improving the security for vetting employees at U.S. broadcasters including those holding security clearances.

Committee majority staff members who briefed The Washington Times on the case said USAGM blocked the investigation set in motion by whistleblowers within VOA.

The hiring of many foreign nationals at U.S. broadcasters makes the matter a serious national security concern, the staff members said.

USAGM managers have acknowledged that Ms. Sieg’s continued employment is a problem, the staff members said, noting that a hearing on the case will be held in the future.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.