The National Endowment for Democracy’s president, Damon Wilson, bragged to a House committee of his group’s aggressive efforts to spark unrest in Iran, including by smuggling Starlink terminals and fashioning anti-Iran narratives for the media.
Damon Wilson, the head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was interrupted by a member of Congress during a House oversight hearing on February 24 after revealing that his agency “began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on” amid the violence which swept through Iran last month.
Before he could finish the sentence, he was cut off by the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Rep. Lois Frankel, who told Wilson: “You know what, I’m going to interrupt you – we’d better not talk about it.”
Wilson’s comments had been prompted by a question from Frankel, who requested details of what appears to be a new and apparently secret initiative by the State Department to provide Starlink terminals to Iranians.
Wilson appeared to take credit for both the recent unrest and Iran and subsequent media framing of the chaos. “What we’re seeing today, the Endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks… that allowed information to go both in and out of the country,” he stated.
According to the New York Times, the Elon Musk-produced internet systems had been smuggled into the country by a “ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers [who] pierced Iran’s digital barricades.” It is clear now that the NED was at least partly responsible for funding and coordinating that network.
With Starlink emerging as a key weapon in the information war waged against Iran, it’s unclear how anti-government actors have managed to smuggle the devices into the country. But a recent incident in which a senior Dutch diplomat was caught trying to sneak multiple Starlink units and satellite phones through security at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Airport gives a hint.
The National Endowment for Democracy was founded in 1982 under the auspices of then-CIA Director William Casey to topple socialist and independent governments through the direct sponsorship of NGO’s, media organizations and political parties. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” NED co-founder Allen Weinstein said of the Endowment’s work in 1991.
Despite its mission of promoting transparency and “fundamental freedoms” abroad, the NED is now a dark money group which conceals the names of its local partners under a “duty of care” policy announced in 2025. During his congressional testimony this February, Wilson insisted the policy was necessary for the security of grantees on the ground.
The NED’s work to smuggle Starlink terminals into Iran is therefore a covert operation aimed at promoting unrest. And according to Wilson, it is now a key part of the Endowment’s most aggressive initiative.
Hellbound and Down 