Radio Free Asia (RFA), a nonprofit news organization fully funded by the U.S. government, is auctioning off large quantities of its broadcast equipment for fractions of its value, drawing sharp criticism from lawmakers and its oversight agency.
The organization, which receives approximately $60 million annually from American taxpayers to produce news in Asia, recently suspended operations and took its website offline, citing a funding lapse during a government shutdown.
Following the shutdown, over a thousand pieces of RFA-branded equipment appeared on the public auction site Rasmus Auctions. Listings showed professional-grade HD cameras, teleprompters, and lenses being sold for less than a dollar, with one office refrigerator listed for just 20 cents.
The sale prompted a sharp rebuke from California Congressman Darrell Issa, who had been working to restore the organization’s funding. “I’ve never seen such belligerence by an organization that gets a hundred percent of its money from the U.S. government,” Issa stated, calling the auction a betrayal of taxpayers. “Lenses you’d pay thousands of dollars for are being sold for pennies. It’s clear they’re liquidating assets out of spite.”
In a statement, RFA blamed earlier budget cuts and the government shutdown for forcing it to make difficult financial choices. “The Administration’s unlawful termination and disruption of RFA’s timely funding, followed by an extended government shutdown, has forced the company to drastically reduce operational costs to set up for long-term success,” the organization said. RFA added that it plans to rebuild once its funding issues are resolved and has retained enough equipment to resume operations.
However, RFA’s explanation was immediately disputed by Kari Lake, deputy executive at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees RFA. “Everything they said was not true,” Lake countered. “We are funding them. We’ve given them every single penny appropriated to them. Eighty cents for an HD camera? That’s a slap in the face to taxpayers.”
Lake has since informed RFA to prepare for an audit next week to investigate the matter.
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