This is part of a Washington Examiner investigative series on self-styled “disinformation” tracking groups that are blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media outlets. Here is where you can read stories in the series.
EXCLUSIVE — Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) are vowing to investigate the State Department for bankrolling a “disinformation” tracking group that is, as the Washington Examiner revealed, secretly blacklisting and taking steps to defund conservative media outlets.
Republican lawmakers have continued to raise concerns over two State Department-backed entities, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Global Engagement Center, granting $665,000 combined between 2020 and 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index. Now, Jordan and Gaetz are setting their sights on an investigation into this funding through the newly created Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
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“I’m deeply concerned about [this], and it fits with a horizontal pattern across the enterprise of government to try to shape how people digest information,” Gaetz told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve seen it at the Department of Homeland Security. We’ve seen it at the FBI. We’ve seen it at the Department of State.”
“I’m going to focus my time on the weaponization subcommittee on these matters. This direct assault on the First Amendment and the ways in which the exquisite powers of the government has been merged with the capabilities of technology to constrain rights that Americans have long held close and cherished,” said Gaetz.
A source close to the National Endowment for Democracy told the Washington Examiner that the nonprofit group, which receives nearly all of its funding through congressional appropriations, has not directly funded GDI’s “dynamic exclusion list” of conservative websites in the United States.
Still, First Amendment lawyers have said that taxpayer dollars flowing to GDI, in and of itself, could present a problem for the government. Any ties at all between the State Department and GDI are alarming, “regardless of whether they do it directly or by proxy, as appears to be the case here,” according to David Warrington, an attorney for Dhillon Law Group.
“This issue is obviously concerning to Chairman Jordan, and the weaponization committee will look into the government’s role in the suppression of the First Amendment,” Russell Dye, a spokesman for Jordan, chairman of the subcommittee and the House Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner.
The $100,000 that the Global Engagement Center gave to GDI was first steered to Park Advisers, an investment firm that fights “disinformation, terrorism, violent extremism, hate speech,” and more, according to the State Department. It was provided to GDI as part of the U.S.-Paris Tech Challenge, which sought “to advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda” overseas, records show.
Partners of the challenge included the Atlantic Council, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the U.K. Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
“Freedom of speech and the press are core American values and must be protected against radical progressives seeking to censor opinions and facts that don’t fit their political narrative,” Rep. James Comer (R-KY) told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, noting that the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which he chairs, “will press the Biden administration for answers about this attack on the First Amendment.”
On Thursday, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation launched a Freedom of Information Act request investigation in connection to the NED and the GEC. The Virginia-based conservative nonprofit group is seeking “documents reflecting any financial support — or details of that support — given to the GDI, Disinformation Index, Inc., AN Foundation, Disinformation Index Foundation, or Park Advisers.”
It is also asking for “internal and external communications” in the form of emails, texts, instant messages, and calendar information related to the various groups, according to the FOIA requests.
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“I think this will be something the weaponization subcommittee will look at,” said Gaetz. “We work in very close concert with the Oversight Committee.”
“We traditionally prefer less intense tools than subpoenas,” he added. “But, unfortunately, so far, the Biden administration has been recalcitrant to the normal tools of oversight. So, if they are going to be unusual in their response to the traditional tools that we use for accommodation, then we might have to be unusual in the vigor with which we pursue that.”
A spokesperson for the State Department told the Washington Examiner: “While we are not aware of the specific interest you reference, the State Department is committed to working with Congressional committees with jurisdiction over U.S. foreign policy to accommodate their need for information to help them conduct oversight for their legitimate legislative purposes.”
