{"id":39008,"date":"2025-04-17T10:54:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T10:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/rubio-announces-closure-of-state-department-effort-that-was-supposed-to-be-dead-already\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T10:54:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T10:54:59","slug":"rubio-announces-closure-of-state-department-effort-that-was-supposed-to-be-dead-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/rubio-announces-closure-of-state-department-effort-that-was-supposed-to-be-dead-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio announces closure of State Department effort that &#8216;was supposed to be dead already&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the closure of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/foreign-policy\/state-department\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">State Department<\/a> effort that he accused of spending millions on censorship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am announcing the closure of the\u00a0State Department\u2019s\u00a0Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R\/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center\u00a0(GEC),&#8221; Rubio <a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/protecting-and-championing-free-speech-at-the-state-department\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said in a statement<\/a> issued on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Under the previous administration,\u00a0this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent\u00a0millions\u00a0of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/person\/r\/sen-marco-rubio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rubio asserted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/state-departments-global-engagement-center-accused-censoring-americans-shuts-its-doors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>STATE DEPARTMENT&#8217;S \u2018GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT CENTER\u2019 ACCUSED OF CENSORING AMERICANS SHUTS ITS DOORS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GEC closed in December, according to an <a href=\"https:\/\/2021-2025.state.gov\/about-us-global-engagement-center-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">archived State Department website content<\/a> that is still viewable online.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio asserted in a piece published on <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/04\/16\/rubio-to-protect-free-speech-the-censorship-industrial-complex-must-be-dismantled\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Federalist<\/a> that the GEC had not actually ended, but was simply re-branded.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/politics\/twitter-boss-elon-musk-government-agency-worst-offender-government-censorship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TWITTER BOSS ELON MUSK ACCUSES GOVERNMENT AGENCY OF BEING \u2018WORST OFFENDER IN US GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC\u2019s funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration,&#8221; Rubio wrote. &#8220;Today, we are putting that to an end. Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former House lawmaker Dan Bishop, who is now serving as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, thanked Rubio. &#8220;This is the way,&#8221; the former congressman wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RepDanBishop\/status\/1912537738043138140\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">post <\/a>on X.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/white-house-proposal-axes-un-nato-funds-halves-state-department-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>WHITE HOUSE PROPOSAL AXES UN, NATO FUNDS AND HALVES STATE DEPARTMENT BUDGET<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/download\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., responded to Rubio&#8217;s announcement, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/derrickvanorden\/status\/1912759743086538861\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">tweeting<\/a>, &#8220;Excellent.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the closure of a State Department effort that he accused of spending millions on censorship. &#8220;I am announcing the closure of the\u00a0State Department\u2019s\u00a0Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R\/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center\u00a0(GEC),&#8221; Rubio said in a statement issued on Wednesday. &#8220;Under the previous administration,\u00a0this &#8230; <a title=\"Rubio announces closure of State Department effort that &#8216;was supposed to be dead already&#8217;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/rubio-announces-closure-of-state-department-effort-that-was-supposed-to-be-dead-already\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Rubio announces closure of State Department effort that &#8216;was supposed to be dead already&#8217;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}