‘Guilty of the highest crime’: Feds killing major government censorship op

The federal government’s Global Engagement Center, a division of the State Department, long has made Republicans and conservatives angry over its tax-funded censorship schemes that it launched under Democrat leadership.

Now it’s apparently going to be put out of business.

WND previously reported the center was responsible for sending money to a London group, Global Disinformation Index, which used the $100,000 American tax money, to “pressure advertisers to boycott conservative media.”

A few weeks ago, Congress issued a subpoena for information about that agenda.

Now, the Washington Examiner is reporting the State Department has told Congress it plans to end the agency entirely.

In a court filing regarding the censorship scheming, lawyers for State said the staff at the Global Engagement Center, and funding for it, will be assigned to other parts of the department.

The report noted the information came in a filing that is part of a lawsuit by conservative media outlets over the tax-funded bias they are fighting.

The center was launched in 2016, and has repeatedly faced criticism and opposition for its ideological agendas.

Especially enraging for conservatives was the fact the London group, supported by the center organized under the umbrella of the State Department, got $100,000 to make a blacklist of conservative media and then fed it to advertising companies in an attempt to hurt those organizations, the report said.

The Examiner explained, “A significant player in the ‘censorship’ investigation was House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, who has led an experienced staff that looked into GEC grants and obtained exclusive documents that unearthed apparent wrongdoing.”

It continued, “The GEC, barring Congress drastically changing course, plans to terminate on Dec. 23, the court filings said. Lawmakers in the House and the Senate reached agreements for the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, but they did not include a provision in the text that would extend the GEC until 2031.”

The center has been put under a federal investigation by Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who charged the State organization falsely attempted to link him to Russia.

“His oversight began after the New York Post published leaked documents showing that the State Department sought to discredit reporting from the Washington Examiner and (Matt) Taibbi in a memo — which appeared to make it seem as if Banks was originally quoted in a Russian news outlet,” the report said.

But, it explained, the quote was a variation of comments he first made to the Washington Examiner defending freedom of speech.

“The GEC is guilty of the highest crime an agency of its kind can commit: that it weapon(iz)ed itself,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said.

“It weaponized itself in the name of partisan politics, targeted innocent people, and sought the censorship of American citizens. It will not be missed,” Issa said.

Members of Congress earlier had demanded to see who got money from the center, raising questions over the Global Disinformation Index, NewsGuard, the Atlantic Council, Poynter Institute and more.

The agency at State was supposed to focus on propaganda abroad, but instead became active in controlling the news cycle in America, describing as “disinformation” any point with which it disagreed.

Congress subpoenas State Dept. for secret payments to news suppressors