As revealed in documents obtained by the Washington Examiner, the State Department has replaced officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which has been funding conservative censorship, with a new in-house agency coordinating the same activities. We are planning to place it in a hub.
washington examiner report According to exclusive documents obtained by the magazine, the State Department plans to redeploy employees of the now-shuttered GEC, which funded conservative censorship, to a new in-house “base” where they will coordinate their efforts. It is said that it is standing. The GEC, created in 2016 to counter foreign disinformation, came under heavy criticism for supporting groups that pressured advertisers to stop funding conservative U.S. media.
On December 6, 2024, the State Department announced in a private letter to members of Congress that it would “reorganize” more than 50 GEC employees and tens of millions of dollars in funding to a hub aimed at countering foreign interference. ” outlined a plan to do so. The proposed new organization would be a “foreign intelligence operations and interference hub,” reporting directly to the agency's undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
According to the Congressional Notice, the State Department intends to realign 51 employees and associated funding from the GEC into the proposed R/FIMI hub. The remaining GEC staff and funding will be distributed among various bureaus within the State Department. According to the document, a total of $69 million in GEC funds will be distributed among various offices, with $29.4 million allocated to the R/FIMI office.
Republican leaders who reviewed the plan said the Biden administration could simply rebrand GEC to something else and create a new entity that could do the same kind of work that has landed the office in trouble over the past two years. This suggests that they may simply be establishing a . This development is likely to prompt a Republican investigation into the State Department's response to the GEC shutdown.
A person familiar with the matter said the planned hub would not have the same grant-making authority as the GEC. But the GEC was also involved in other efforts that raised concerns among lawmakers about possible First Amendment violations.
Meanwhile, GEC's top staff have already resurfaced in high-ranking positions within the State Department. James P. Rubin, a former special envoy and GEC coordinator, currently serves as a senior advisor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Leah Bray, former acting GEC coordinator, is chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell. Mr Daniel Kimage, who was the GEC's Principal Deputy Coordinator, works in the team of the Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy.
Margot Cleveland, a lawyer with the New Civil Liberties Union, expressed concern that the GEC would continue under the so-called hub, given evidence that it has long ignored Congress's mandate to focus solely on foreign disinformation. did. The legal nonprofit is suing conservative media outlets The Federalist and Daily Wire over its funding of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard, a media blacklisting organization aimed at censoring conservatives. represents.
read more The Washington Examiner is here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship issues.
