GAO: Bush Team Broke Law With 'Covert Propaganda'

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GAO: Bush Team Broke Law With 'Covert Propaganda'
By E&P Staff
Published: September 30, 2005

NEW YORKThe Bush Administration violated laws prohibiting the use of covert propaganda when it secretly paid broadcaster/ columnist Armstrong Williams to promote its education policies, and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Friday.

Williams received about $240,000 from the federal Department of Education. Tribune Media Services dropped Williams' syndicated column in January when it learned about the payments.

In its account Saturday, The New York Times said the report "provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities....In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated 'covert propaganda' in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban."

The Education Department has defended its payments to Williams, saying his commentaries were "no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public."

The GAO's report also uncovered a previously undisclosed case in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the "declining science literacy of students," was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country, according to the report in the Times. The government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education, was never disclosed.

The investigation was requested by U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and carried out by the GAO, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress.

Rep. George Miller, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday: "This latest report confirms that the Bush Administration broke the law when it wasted taxpayer dollars to promote its own political agenda. ... 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."
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E&P Staff ([email protected])

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Armstrong Williams May Return Some DOE Money
Armstrong Williams May Return Some DOE Money
By Dave Astor
Published: October 03, 2005 11:45 AM ET

Commentator Armstrong Williams is in negotiations to possibly return a portion of the $240,000 he received from the U.S. Department of Education for promoting the Bush administration's education policies.

The negotiations were reported Monday in USA Today and verified Monday morning by E&P Online. "He's been in negotiations since the summer," said Shirley Daze, director of communications at the Graham Williams Group (GWG) in Washington, D.C. It is not known how much of the $240,000 might be returned, but Daze said it won't be the whole sum.

Williams was criticized for taking the money in a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released Friday (E&P Online, Sept. 30). The nonpartisan GAO said the Bush administration violated laws prohibiting the use of covert propaganda when it secretly paid the conservative broadcaster/columnist to promote its education policies without disclosing he was on the government's payroll.

Williams -- who was not immediately available for comment Monday -- told USA Today he was paid only to produce ads and said negotiations to return part of his fees stem from the fact that he didn't fulfill the part of the contract requiring him to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. But the GAO report said: "It is clear to us from the monthly reports and invoices provided by GWG that Mr. Williams promoted the NCLB Act at the behest of the Department [of Education] and that he thought it was part of the contract."

Tribune Media Services dropped Williams' syndicated column when it learned about the payments in January.
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Dave Astor ([email protected]) is a senior editor at E&P.

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'Covert Propaganda'. Without corporate media cooperation how could Bushie have lied us into war?
Quote:

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years."

He went on to explain:

"It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."

-- David Rockefeller, Speaking at the June, 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by then-Governor Bill Clinton and by Dan Quayle

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GAO: Bush Team Broke Law With 'Covert Propaganda'

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