It looked bad for Armstrong Williams when he signed a contract with Bush’s Education Department to tout the president’s policies. It looked worse when the Government Accountability Office concluded that the contracts constituted illegal “covert propaganda.” But it looks like things are about to get even worse for this right-wing pundit.
The Education Department has acknowledged that it is working with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington to investigate the Bush administration’s contract with commentator Armstrong Williams. That suggests civil or criminal charges could be filed, according to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
“The inspector general wouldn’t refer this to the U.S. attorney unless there was evidence of misconduct that requires further investigating,” Dan Katz, Lautenberg’s chief counsel, told the Associated Press.
The irony of this new angle isn’t that Armstrong took public money to spread propaganda, it’s that he didn’t do it enough.
The GAO’s finding about “covert propaganda” referred to the Bush administration’s contracts, which sought to use private media to advance its agenda without full disclosure to the public. The investigation at the U.S. attorney’s office, however, centers on whether Armstrong lived up to his end of a bad deal. Armstrong accepted over $240,000 to tell his audience how great No Child Left Behind is, but Sen. Lautenberg’s research shows that Armstrong may not have actually performed the work cited in his monthly reports to the Education Department.
“It’s bad enough the administration bribed a journalist to promote their policies, but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done,” said Lautenberg.
Armstrong Williams, in other words, may have been guilty of being a hack while touting Bush’s policies and may have been guilty of fraud at the same time.