House Republicans demand grant records from federal agency that funded ‘disinformation’ tracker
The leaders of two House panels on Wednesday demanded that the head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center provide Congress with unredacted grant records and documents related to the agency’s funding of a group that falsely deemed The Post to be one of the “riskiest” outlets for disinformation.
In a letter sent to Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center James Rubin, Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), chairman of the House Small Business Committee, and Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), head of the panel’s Oversight Subcommittee, argue that “the federal government has undermined First Amendment principles by working to censor certain viewpoints by proxy.”
The letter, first obtained by the Washington Examiner, further demands a staff briefing on the State Department agency’s reasoning for funding the London-based Global Disinformation Index before it published a December blacklist of 10 outlets, including The Post, that boast conservative or libertarian-leaning opinion sections.
The Global Disinformation Index, which bills itself as “the world’s first rating of the media sites based on the risk of the outlet carrying disinformation,” appears to be an attempt to pressure advertisers and social media companies from steering clear of outlets on the blacklist.
GDI does not provide any evidence that The Post actually spread disinformation.
“The federal government, including the Global Engagement Center (GEC), have been collaborating with the private sector to have user-generated content removed from various internet platforms,” the two lawmakers wrote in their letter to Rubin.
“As you know, the First Amendment prohibits the government from imposing viewpoint-based censorship restrictions,” Williams and Van Duyne add.
“It is inconsequential whether the government believes this speech is ‘disinformation’, ‘misinformation’, or ‘malinformation’ – constitutional protection does not turn upon the truth, popularity, or social utility of the ideas and beliefs which are offered.”
GDI reportedly secured $100,000 from the Global Engagement Center and $545,000 from the government-funded National Endowment for Democracy.
Both entities have said they don’t plan to provide additional funding to GDI, but the past spending has raised alarms on Capitol Hill.
“This Committee wishes to understand the use of that grant, and any other GEC funding of similar entities whose actions have resulted in small businesses’ loss of profits and economic opportunities from the freedom of engaging in uncensored speech on online platforms. Using taxpayer dollars to bankroll third- parties in order to deplatform small businesses and censor private speech runs directly afoul of the State Action doctrine,” the lawmakers write. “The federal government cannot circumvent constitutional protections by using private actors to accomplish what the State itself is prohibited from doing.”
“It is the GEC’s responsibility to protect the United States from threats from foreign bad actors, not to facilitate harm to U.S. small businesses through intermediaries because the Administration disagrees with the speech or politics of the business owner.”
