Disinformation Inc: State Department gets sued for stonewalling records on blacklist group

EXCLUSIVE — The State Department is being sued by a right-leaning watchdog group for failing to turn over records related to the Global Disinformation Index, a British organization it funded that has been covertly blacklisting conservative media.

Protect the Public’s Trust filed seven Freedom of Information Act requests in mid-February to the State Department, a nonprofit group it has bankrolled called the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, seeking communications with GDI and other parties after multiple Washington Examiner reports on the blacklist operation. But because the State Department has estimated that it won’t provide the records until August 2025, the watchdog is alleging that the agency is unlawfully withholding them, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained by the Washington Examiner.

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“Government involvement in the Censorship Industrial Complex is one of the most significant stories of our time — implicating legal and constitutional issues that go to the core of what our nation stands for,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain, an ex-Trump Education Department official, told the Washington Examiner. “For the State Department to claim they can’t provide records until 2025, after the next presidential election, flies in the face of their obligations to the American public.”

GDI, which received roughly $960,000 combined from 2020 to 2022 from the State Department and the NED, has come under continued scrutiny from Republican lawmakers and watchdog groups. The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative ethics group, on Thursday accused GDI’s two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, Disinformation Index and the AN Foundation, of violating federal law after providing the Washington Examiner with heavily redacted copies of their 2021 federal tax forms, according to an IRS complaint.

The financial disclosures redacted or omitted a variety of key details about their operations, including board members, directors, officers, who prepared the documents, and in the case of the private foundation, even the source of a $115,000 contribution. GDI’s lawyer Marcus Owens claimed in an April 6 letter that the move, which tax experts warn appears illegal and unprecedented, was done because the groups are claiming to be “harassed” under a little-known federal law related to tax-exempt entities being the target of a “coordinated” campaign.

PPT’s records request to the government came after several Washington Examiner reports revealing how GDI has been quietly feeding blacklists of conservative websites, including the New York Post, the Federalist, Reason, and RealClearPolitics, to advertisers with the intent of shutting them down. In late February, House Oversight and Accountability Committee James Comer (R-KY) demanded that Secretary of State Antony Blinken provide records on the department’s funding of GDI.

On Feb. 20, just three days before Comer’s request, NED announced that it would no longer fund GDI in order “to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly.” However, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, an interagency that House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed last week for records on its alleged coordination with Big Tech on “censorship” of opposing views, has not made a similar commitment.

The State Department first responded to PPT’s records request on March 1, telling the watchdog it was claiming “unusual circumstances” to take longer than 20 days to follow-up. The watchdog seeks communications from June 2020 through September 2021 between top GEC officials about GDI and other “disinformation” trackers, including Newsguard, Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Its request singled out the agency’s special envoy and coordinator James Rubin, deputy coordinator Leah Bray, technology engagement director Patricia Watts, and any chiefs of staff.

Moreover, PPT is asking for correspondence between GEC officials with GDI personnel, including its CEO Clare Melford. It’s also seeking correspondence between the agency with personnel from the Atlantic Council, which in 2021 partnered with the State Department for the U.S.-Paris Tech Challenge — a program that saw GDI receive $100,000 “to advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda” in foreign countries.

On March 31, the State Department informed PPT of its estimated date of records completion on Aug. 29, 2025, according to the lawsuit. PPT alleged in its complaint that this decision fails to align with a March 2022 memo by Attorney General Merrick Garland, which described how FOIA is “a vital tool for ensuring transparency, accessibility, and accountability in government.”

PPT is requesting that the government turn over the relevant records within 10 days of a court order, “or by other such date as the Court deems appropriate.” It’s also asking to be awarded for the costs of the proceeding, including for attorney and litigation fees.

The lawsuit comes weeks after Oracle, one of the largest software companies in the world, told the Washington Examiner that it will no longer collaborate with GDI in connection to a brand safety initiative launched in 2021. Microsoft, which suspended its relationship with GDI in mid-February, has not yet announced publicly whether it will completely distance itself from GDI.

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PPT’s lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

The State Department declined to comment.

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