Published February 17, 2024
EXCLUSIVE — Republican lawmakers are accusing the State Department of threatening to obstruct their investigation into “censorship” of companies in the United States.
House Small Business Committee Republicans have continued to request grant records from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center for an inquiry into “government censorship and revenue interference of American small businesses by proxy,” which the committee launched after a series of Washington Examinerreports on the interagency group funding the Global Disinformation Index, a British think tank blacklisting conservative media from advertising dollars. Now, the Biden administration is asserting it may resort to letting the GOP-led panel review documents solely under in camerasupervision, which lawmakers say is a “veiled threat to further impede” their investigation, letters show.
“Not only is this an impermissible standard, but it improperly hinders congressional oversight,” House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) and Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) wrote in a letter Friday to GEC special envoy James Rubin and Naz Durakoglu, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. The letter once more asked the GEC to turn over lists of subcontractors and grant recipients, among other records, plus an internal document titled “2023.02.14 GEC-GDI-BLACKLIST.docx” and for a briefing.
