Michigan Congressman Bill Huizenga is exposing how the U.S. State Department leveraged tax dollars to censor conservative Americans, and whether efforts to stop it are working.
Huizenga, R-Zeeland, on Tuesday offered reporters who worked to expose the issue an opportunity to testify in the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia he chairs.
In December, Congress terminated the State Department’s Global Engagement Center after the subcommittee’s investigation revealed the office strayed from its mission to counter foreign propaganda to “facilitate the censorship of American voices, especially if those voices were conservative and refuse to align with the left-leaning establishment politics” at taxpayer expense, Huizenga said.
The Biden administration then restructured the office into a “Counter Foreign Information, Manipulation, and Interference Hub.”
“The question we will be exploring today is whether this restructuring is actually in name only,” Huizenga said. “Put simply … the State Department should never, and if I can help it will never again, be in the business of silencing American voices.”
Matt Taibbi, an author known for exposing government pressure censor social media, provided examples of how the GEC leveraged real Russian social media accounts to identify a “propaganda ecosystem” for censorship that lumped in “highly connective” accounts of actual Americans.
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“No actual connection or expression of support was required,” he said. “GEC by law was supposed to be a ‘counter-messaging’ operation for diminishing foreign influence, but this State Department entity ended up using this ‘ecosystem’ trick to turn their focus on Americans whose beliefs merely clashed with official policy.”
Benjamin Weingarten, journalist with RealClearPolitics, elaborated on how two organizations – NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index – were supported both financially and promotionally by the GEC to “systemically defund sources of harmful misinformation” both foreign and domestic.
The effort involved “rating and reviewing thousands of outlets for ‘reliability’ and creating ‘exclusion lists’ – blacklists – for brands to provide ad agencies and ad-tech partners for use in determining where not to place ads,” he said.
“Those outlets NewsGuard and GDI have targeted suggest they have been smeared and stigmatized for taking positions on matters from COVID-19 to the War in Ukraine contrary to those of the political establishment, consequently incurring financial and reputational damage,” Weingarten said, offering additional insights into how the ordeal impacted RealClearPolitics.
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“Congress’ refusal to reauthorize the GEC was a meaningful first step towards accountability given what has transpired – albeit still a gigantic leap from justice for those targeted,” he said.
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s vow to “support and defend Americans’ rights to free speech, terminating any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American People,” and President Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” signal additional progress, those efforts “must be made permanent in law, and, perhaps even bolstered through imposing severe personal legal liability on those who would break such law,” Weingarten told lawmakers.
The Tuesday hearing also featured testimony from Nina Jankowicz, CEO of the American Sunlight Project, who worked to discredit Taibbi and others who exposed what she described as the “censorship lie.”
“In pursuing investigations and hearings on the censorship lie, Congress has punted its responsibility to safeguard our national security; it has opted instead for political theatrics that are high on fantasy and low on facts,” said Jankowicz, who repeatedly refused to identify donors to the American Sunlight Project. “Conversely, when given the chance to examine the record, the Supreme Court and others found no substance behind these breathless claims of censorship.”
The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the case cited by Jankowicz, but rather dismissed the case in a 6-3 voter over a lack of standing.
Democrats on the subcommittee lamented Republicans’ relentless focus on government censorship operations, and attempted to smear the 47th POTUS and his allies over what Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., labeled “the largest attack on free speech in America in decades.”
“Essentially, they want to strip your American freedoms for their right to have absolute power,” she claimed.