Schmitt Presses Schumer to Cut 'Censorship' Agency Funding

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is pressing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to cut off funding for a State Department agency conservatives say blacklisted Americans and news outlets, reports the Washington Examiner.

The Global Engagement Center is set to be refunded in the continuing resolution bill currently being hammered out among lawmakers on Capitol Hill despite the State Department saying it intended to shut down the agency by next week.

"As we deliberate a path forward, I demand that reauthorization of the Global Engagement Center be excluded from any subsequent piece of legislation for the remainder of the 118th Congress," Schmitt wrote in the letter to Schumer.

"The American people deserve to know their First Amendment rights are being protected," the Missouri Republican added. "I will strongly oppose any end-of-year bill that includes reauthorization or funding for the GEC and urge my colleagues to do the same."

Reporter Matt Taibbi said the GEC "funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer and insidious — and idiotic — new form of blacklisting" during the coronavirus pandemic, writing on the Twitter files that the agency "flagged accounts as 'Russian personas and proxies' based on criteria like 'Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,' blaming 'research conducted at the Wuhan institute,' and 'attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.'"

"State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. website ZeroHedge, claiming it 'led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.'"

Schmitt said the CR included a number of objectionable measures buried deep within the bill, including funding for the GEC.

"Originally established to combat foreign propaganda, the GEC has since mutated into a massive censorship machine designed to suppress narratives that question establishment thinking," he added.

"What's worse is the willingness of federal governments and social media platforms to partner with GEC in these unconstitutional censorship efforts. … The First Amendment is the bedrock of our society, and the federal government should never be funding institutions like the GEC, which seeks to undermine such a core constitutional principle. Under no circumstances should taxpayer dollars be funding the GEC, we owe that to the American people."

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