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WASHINGTON, DC -- When the Bush Administration paid media commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its education policies without disclosing that he was on the government’s payroll, it violated laws prohibiting the use of covert propaganda, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said today.
The GAO also found a media analysis performed by Ketchum Communications, a PR firm, to be illegal. The analysis examined public attitudes towards the Bush Administration and the Republican Party on education issues. “Appropriated funds are not available to evaluate the Republican Party’s (or any other political party’s) commitment to education, and the Department should take appropriate steps to ensure that no such use of its appropriations occurs in the future,” the GAO report said.
The GAO reports were requested by Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA).
In January of 2005, Representative George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House education committee, requested that the Inspector General at the Department of Education investigate the Ketchum contract with the Department, which included $240,000 in payments to Williams. The IG issued a report this spring that catalogued problems with the Department’s contracting process but deferred to the GAO on the question of whether the arrangement between Williams and the Department of Education violated prohibitions on covert propaganda.
The Inspector General also issued a second report in September that identified numerous examples of the use of covert propaganda by the Department of Education. For example, opinion articles appearing in newspapers all over the country were written and placed by authors paid by the federal government who failed to disclose this relationship in their columns. These writers offered opinions – sometimes strident ones – about controversial areas of federal education policy.
Miller issued this statement today:
“This latest report confirms that the Bush Administration broke the law when it wasted taxpayer dollars to promote its own political agenda. This practice is corrupt and deceptive, like so much of what the Bush Administration does. Legislation is now pending in Congress to ensure that similar abuses of the public trust do not recur, and we should pass that legislation immediately. Because it has proven over and over again its unwillingness to take responsibility and change course, we cannot trust the Bush Administration to police itself in this case, either.”
For more information on the use of covert propaganda by the Bush Administration, visit: http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/propaganda.html.
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