Joe Biden wants to make life difficult for Trump before his inauguration. It’s his way of getting back at the president-elect but at the cost of the American people.
And President Biden is launching this nasty trick up his sleeve right before he leaves office.
The U.S. State Department has informed Congress of plans to redirect staff and funds from the controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC) to a newly established office aimed at countering “foreign information manipulation and interference.”
This development follows the shutdown of the GEC, which ceased operations on December 23 after lawmakers declined to renew its authorization in recent spending legislation.
The GEC, originally founded in 2016 to combat disinformation from foreign adversaries, faced sharp criticism from House Republicans who accused it of promoting censorship of American voices.
With a budget of $61 million and a staff of 120, the center had become a focal point of controversy, particularly after revelations about its involvement in content moderation efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Washington Examiner, senior Republican staffers reviewing the Biden administration’s plans see the new office as a mere “rebranding” of the GEC. They fear it could continue similar practices that drew condemnation, including alleged censorship activities.
“Should the authority for the GEC not be extended, the [State Department] plans to realign 51 employees and associated funding from the GEC to a proposed Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub reporting to the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy (R),” read a December 6 notification letter to Congress according to the outlet.
Of the GEC’s $61 million budget, $29.4 million will be shifted to fund the new office, while remaining staff and resources are being allocated to regional bureaus, including those focused on African, East Asian, and European affairs.
This restructuring has already drawn scrutiny from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who are expected to launch investigations into the new hub.
“[President-elect] Donald Trump and [Secretary of State-designate] Marco Rubio are going to have to track every single office, down to every single staffer, if they want to end the weaponization of the federal government against conservatives,” said a senior GOP aide.
The aide further claimed, “The State Department is filled with Resistance Democrats who think they got through the first Trump administration and will get through the second the same way.”
The GEC’s controversies include findings from journalist Matt Taibbi, who revealed in his Twitter Files exposé that the center pressured social media platforms to suppress certain narratives, such as early theories suggesting COVID-19 originated from a lab in China.
“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA,” Taibbi testified before Congress in March 2023.
Further fueling criticism, the Washington Examiner uncovered that the GEC awarded a $100,000 grant to the London-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) in 2021 and 2022.
The nonprofit later labeled several outlets, including the New York Post, as sources of “disinformation.”
Republicans have argued that the GEC far exceeded its original mission of countering foreign propaganda, actively targeting American voices instead.
Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in 2022, has publicly condemned the GEC, calling it the “worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation.”
For now, concerns linger that this latest move by the Biden administration could perpetuate the same contentious practices by the GEC but under a different banner.
Stay tuned to the Conservative Column.
