"Investigators at the Education Department [3] have contacted the U.S. attorney's office regarding the Bush administration [4]'s hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams [5] to promote its agenda," writes Nancy Benac. The Government Accountability Office recently concluded that the Education Department [6] engaged in illegal "covert propaganda [7]" by hiring Williams to promote the administration's No Child Left Behind Act [8], without disclosing that he was being paid. U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg [9] (D-NJ) has pressed for a criminal fraud investigation focused on questions about whether Williams 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 [10], but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done," said Lautenberg.