The senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Kari Lake, says an employee at the Voice of America is under investigation for threatening a sitting member of Congress over a two-year period.

Ms. Lake made the assertion during a Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday on the failings of the agency. She says the Capitol Police are investigating an employee for making threatening calls from inside the agency between roughly October and January of this year. 

When questioned about the member of Congress who was being threatened, Ms. Lake implied it was a Republican but wouldn’t comment further because she said she was concerned about damaging the investigation.

Her disclosure was just one moment in a contentious hearing in which Democratic members repeatedly attacked her downsizing at the agency and what it is doing to reach heavily censored countries with messaging from the United States.

Ms. Lake says she has a mandate to clean up and reduce the agency to its statutorily required minimum size. She said the goal is to close the agency next year.

“President Trump has called for the elimination of USAGM because he recognizes that it is corrupt and mismanaged,” Ms. Lake said. “I agree with him.”

“This place is rotten, it’s rotten to the core,” she added.

She says the “salvageable” parts will be picked up by another agency. She suggested the Department of State, where the VOA used to be housed before becoming part of the separate agency.

Members of both parties said the agency had an important mission. 

“We need the Voice of America in Iran. We need to ensure the Iranian people hear the truth, that we do not intend to harm them, but rather their oppressor and the theocratic regime of the ayatollah,” Congressman Michael McCaul said.

Congressman Ami Bera said he was concerned about trying to get the truth into Iran with a shoestring staff, but Ms. Lake disputed that the agency was short-staffed.

“Sometimes a lean and mean staff makes it easier to get things out,” Ms. Lake claimed. “The agency itself is not needed. It has proven it does not know how to manage and does not know how to be respectful of this country and the American taxpayer’s dollars.”

When the ranking member of the committee, Congressman Gregory Meeks, peppered Ms. Lake with questions about who she consulted with at the agency before making cuts, she replied, “These are ridiculous questions.”

At another point, Ms. Lake brought up rumors about Congressman Greg Stanton’s sexuality. After he repeatedly tried to get her to say she had lost her election for governor and said she had repeatedly lied about election fraud, she replied, “That was complete insanity. I wish I could yield back the last five minutes of my life, actually.”

She then started talking about how there is a “firewall” that does not allow outside oversight over potential lies produced by the VOA newsroom. 

“They can literally put out a lie about anyone here and I know you’ve been the victim of that,” Ms. Lake told Mr. Stanton. “I know you’ve been the victim. I remember the stories about you where they said you have a gay lover.”

She was cut off by Congressman Bill Keating yelling, “Mister chairman.” Mr. Keating then asked for her words to be stricken from the record.

After Ms. Lake said they were rumors Mr. Stanton had denied, Congressman Darrell Issa, who was chairing the committee at the time, allowed the words to stand.