US’s little-known weapon for countering foreign disinformation faces uncertain future

This year, a little-known center within the State Department exposed a major Russian disinformation campaign in Africa, scoring a rare but decisive victory as America’s adversaries seek to sow chaos and confusion around the world.

Now, the Global Engagement Center, which acts as America’s nerve center in combating foreign, state-backed disinformation campaigns in other countries, is itself under threat — not from foreign capitals but from within the halls of Congress.

In late December, the GEC’s congressional authorization is set to expire, potentially dismantling this specialized unit at a time when its architects argue it’s needed most.

A bipartisan pair of senators is working to extend the center’s mandate into the next decade. But they’ll need to muscle past several skeptical Republican colleagues, who have accused the center of overstepping its ambit to coordinate U.S. counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences, alleging it has turned its gaze toward American shores to silence conservative voices.

A Democratic victory in the House in November could breathe new life into the center during a lame-duck session, however. But if Republicans continue to hold on to the lower chamber, the center is all but dead.

“[The GEC] has played an indispensable role in combating Russian and Chinese disinformation. It would unnecessarily undermine U.S. national security if we eliminated this tool,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who co-led the bill that helped create the center in 2016 and who is now leading the effort to save the center from extinction alongside Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The two lawmakers have proposed an amendment in this year’s must-pass National Defense Authorization Act that will extend the center’s mandate through 2031, with tighter controls on how the center spends its money and strict bans on supporting entities that engage in U.S. political activities.

Special envoy James Rubin, a veteran of the Clinton-era State Department and once known as Madeleine Albright’s right-hand man, signed on to lead the foreign-focused center two years ago, inheriting an upstart organization of around 180 staff and a rough budget of $61 million.

Under his leadership, the GEC has published four major public exposures of Russian disinformation campaigns in Latin America, Africa, Moldova and via Russian state media outlet RT, as well as released eight detailed public reports on Russian and Chinese operations. According to the center’s own assessment, China — which often works in lockstep with the Kremlin’s disinformation efforts — has now invested “billions of dollars” to exert government control globally and exploit international organizations through disinformation and propaganda.

In January, the GEC spearheaded an agreement to counter foreign state disinformation that has so far earned 21 international government backers such as Moldova, Spain, Estonia, Poland, Finland and Côte d’Ivoire, potentially paving the way for other countries to set up their own version of the GEC at home.

The GEC’s operation in Africa was its largest yet, exposing a complex Kremlin-backed plan called the “African Initiative” that had been set in motion to undermine U.S. and Western influence across Africa by amplifying disinformation online about U.S.-funded health programs. The Russian campaign enlisted independent journalists, bloggers and public leaders to help spread conspiracy theories critical of the health programs across websites, social media and Telegram channels.

Rubin said the real-world impact likely would have been “much, much worse” had the GEC not caught and tracked the Russian campaign sooner.

“Many, many thousands, if not more, of people might have believed [the disinformation] and not received life-saving medical care,” he said.

Yet for all its successes in strengthening global efforts to catch and kill disinformation campaigns abroad, several Republican lawmakers have expressed opposition to reauthorizing the center. In July, House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.), and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) alleged that the center is “at best indifferent to, and at worst complicit in, an orchestrated and systematic effort to stretch the term ‘disinformation’ to encompass viewpoints that, among American progressives, are deemed to be politically disfavored or inconvenient.”

Republicans have criticized the GEC due to its connection to the Global Disinformation Index, a U.K.-based nonprofit that looks at media entities across countries and rates them based on how likely they are to spread disinformation. The GEC had previously funded the GDI to help monitor disinformation campaigns in Asia, and in 2022, the GDI published an independent study on the media landscape in the United States, labeling conservative outlets including Newsmax, One America News Network and The New York Post as high risk.

A GOP aide familiar with the matter said Rubin has held multiple staff-level calls with skeptics on the Hill. The aide, who like others was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the talks, expressed continued concern that the GEC has been complicit in attempts to censor conservative viewpoints in America.

A majority staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee echoed that view, arguing that the GEC refuses to acknowledge the supposedly contentious nature of past grant funding allocations — specifically to the GDI — which has damaged its reputation among some conservatives.

Rubin said he’s spent an enormous amount of time on Capitol Hill, volunteering to brief the entire House Intelligence Committee and responding to countless letters and subpoenas. (Jeff Naft, the spokesperson for the majority staff on the House Intelligence Committee, confirmed that Rubin has briefed the panel in the past.)

A spokesperson for the State Department also noted that the GEC has conducted over 100 formal and informal meetings with Congress since the start of 2023, transmitting more than 3,000 pages of documents to House Foreign Affairs.

Rubin acknowledged the GDI controversy, admitting that the center “couldn’t predict what [the GDI] would do” after it received U.S. funding. He said he’s since assured lawmakers that the center will not provide any further funding to the GDI.

“The updated reauthorization addresses concerns raised by House colleagues and clarifies that the GEC’s funding remains strictly nonpartisan,” Murphy said of his and Cornyn’s amendment.

So far, the amendment has gotten backing from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and Senate Leadership, Murphy added. But that may not be enough to convince the GEC’s harshest critics in time.

“While I appreciate the State Department’s repeated engagement, it needs to start answering the questions we’ve asked about GEC’s relationship with outside entities,” McCaul said. “The American people deserve complete transparency, not obfuscations and ideologically biased grant-making.”

The State Department held a town hall on Wednesday to outline contingency plans should the Global Engagement Center close at the end of the year, per one State Department official familiar with internal discussions about the bureau’s future. This included details about how staff might be absorbed into other departments ahead of its potential sundown date.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that acting Undersecretary Lee Satterfield this week held an “open and frank conversation about the Department’s efforts to pursue reauthorization and the Secretary’s commitment to preserving the GEC’s critical work” with GEC staff.

“No matter what, combating foreign information manipulation overseas will continue as a critical part of the Department’s mission,” the spokesperson said.

Despite the controversy in the U.S., the GEC’s work has won praise from foreign allies who worked closely with the center on exposing disinformation campaigns overseas.

“They’re doing great work,” one Western official said. “The mapping that [the GEC] recently presented to us of the publishing of Russian and Chinese state content was extremely useful.”

Another Western official highlighted how disinformation campaigns can morph into far-reaching security threats, pointing to violence in Mali and a July 2023 coup in Niger that demanded France exit the country. “That really pushed [us] to bolster our efforts to counter disinformation. It’s a big area of focus now.”

Shuttering the center could have consequences for America’s ability to counter global disinformation campaigns in the future as the threats grow larger.

“You lose that dedicated part of the U.S. government that has a mandate that compels it to work on this issue,” the State Department official said. “You lose the investment that has been made into building up the personnel of the center, that has been invested in building up its expertise.”

“We’re just starting to get our footing, honestly,” Rubin said of the center’s work. “And I know that Secretary [Antony] Blinken regards this as a mission-critical entity.”

John Sakiellaridis and Eric Bazail-Emil contributed to this report