Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday decried the Biden administration’s silence on the Polish government’s crackdown on “media freedom” and the “rule of law,” Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took TVP Info, a 24-hour public news channel, off the air, and “dismissed executives from state media,” claiming that the move would make the channel more impartial.
Members of the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS) party, TVP Info, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have denounced the move.
Pavol Szalai, head of RSF’s EU/Balkans desk, said, “The public media belong neither to PiS, nor to any other party.” Szalai urged Tusk to pass legislation to ensure “independence of the public media and on decreasing political influence in their oversight, funding and leadership appointment.”
Vance, in a letter to Blinken obtained by Breitbart News, decried not only the crackdown on free speech but also the Biden administration’s silence on the controversy.
“The firings of personnel at Telewizja Polska (TVP), Polskie Radio, and the Polish Press Agency, initiated promptly after Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his political allies took power, raise questions about this new government’s commitment to media freedom and the rule of law,” the Ohio senator said in his letter.
Vance also noted that, in contrast to its lack of reaction to the Poland controversy, the Biden administration raised alarm bells over Trump’s manager of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Michael Pack, firing the chiefs of the government-sponsored broadcast networks, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and others.
The Ohio conservative said that Biden’s interim head of USAGM called Trump’s removal of these chiefs “unconstitutional retaliation” and said the chiefs were “purged from their positions.”
He continued, “Biden administration officials, at least publicly, have said nothing. This was not the case when Trump administration officials’ actions—which did not involve taking a major network off air—were nonetheless characterized in strikingly similar terms.”
“While I disagree with the aforementioned plaintiffs [from USAGM], it is not clear to me why concerns of this nature are not reflected in the Biden administration’s posture towards the new Polish government,” Vance said.
Vance remarked, “It is not immediately obvious how the Biden administration’s silence on the situation in Poland can be reconciled with past administration rhetoric regarding press freedom in Central Europe. Indeed, in recent years administration officials have appeared eager to comment on the state of media in neighboring countries, particularly Hungary after its citizens elected a conservative government.”
“I urge you to encourage Poland’s new government to reconsider any actions that could undermine it or the freedoms Polish and American citizens both hold dear,” Vance added.
Read the Vance’s letter below:
Vance Letter to Blinken on Poland Media Freedom [1] by Breitbart News on Scribd
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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