A federal judge in California has halted the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) Hub, formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC).
In a June 13 order, US District Judge Susan Illston declared that the planned elimination of the unit, part of a broader push by the administration to downsize the federal government, violates an earlier injunction.
We obtained a copy of the order for you here.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio may have prematurely celebrated the end of R-FIMI back in April when he said the censorship unit was “dead.”
Despite his announcement, legal barriers remain in place, preserving the agency’s existence. For now.
Through the intervention of the federal judiciary, R-FIMI, a program with a $50 million annual budget that has drawn fire for suppressing online speech under the pretense of combating “foreign disinformation,” has been granted an unexpected lifeline.
The agency, a legacy of the Obama administration, was launched in 2016 to monitor and counter alleged foreign propaganda, particularly from Russia.
But over time, its activities expanded into domestic spheres, drawing allegations that it pressured social media platforms to silence certain political voices ahead of the 2020 election.
Hellbound and Down 