The Global Engagement Center (GEC) was an agency of the U.S. State Department tasked with “coordinating U.S. counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences.” ¹ The Global Engagement Center was shut down on December 23, 2024, after Congress “declined to enact several proposals to extend the GEC’s mandate” that year. ²

The GEC was awarded an establishing provision in December 2016 by the U.S. Congress in that year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which expanded the scope of GEC to include “counter[ing] foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.” Congress increased the authority of the GEC in 2018, directing the organization to “lead” and “direct” any “interagency counter-extremist and counter-propaganda communications.” ³

In a letter sent to then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL), and U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised concerns that the GEC was not effectively countering foreign disinformation and propaganda. The letter also stated that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs had “repeatedly expressed its concerns” that the GEC was “contributing to the censorship of American voices” with its grants and collaboration with “private organizations that conduct operations in both the U.S. and foreign countries.” It continued by stating the GEC was “ineffective at preventing or stemming foreign misinformation and disinformation.” ²

The GEC was reorganized as the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) after its closure. R/FIMI was shut down in April 2025 by second Trump administration U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Secretary Rubio noted that it is the “responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom of Americans to exercise their free speech.” He argued that GEC “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” ⁴

Background

The Global Engagement Center was an agency of the U.S. State Department tasked with “coordinating U.S. counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences.” The GEC was established in March 2016 after President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13721. The order stated that the GEC “shall lead the coordination, integration, and synchronization of Government-wide communications activities directed at foreign audiences abroad” in order to lessen the influence of “international terrorist organizations.” The GEC replaced the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. ¹

The GEC also countered messaging from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). According to the State Department website, the GEC played a “key role in the Obama administration’s revamped strategy to counter ISIL’s messaging.” The website also states that the GEC was focused on “bringing together and enabling a global network” to combat ISIL’s messaging. ¹

The State Department website also notes that the GEC was focused on four core areas. These core areas included building partnerships to increase the “capacity of a global network of positive messengers against violent extremism.” The GEC notes it was partnered with governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), schools, “young people,” religious leaders, and “social and civil society leaders.” ¹

Other core areas the GEC focused on included data analytics, where the GEC used analytics systems from the private sector and the public sector, to “better understand radicalization dynamics online,” and to measure its effectiveness; and content, which the GEC described as focusing on “collaborative, thematic campaigns in coordination with counter-ISIL coalition nations” and other international partners. ¹

The GEC was awarded an establishing provision in December 2016 by the U.S. Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act, which expanded the scope of GEC to include “counter[ing] foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.” Congress increased the authority of the GEC in 2018, requiring the organization to “lead” and “direct” any “interagency counter-extremist and counter-propaganda communications.” ³

Censorship Controversy and Closure

The Global Engagement Center was shut down on December 23, 2024, after Congress “declined to enact several proposals to extend the GEC’s mandate” that year. The organization was criticized in 2024 by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL), and U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). ²

In a letter sent to then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Reps. McCaul, Mast, and Issa raised concerns that the GEC was not effectively countering foreign disinformation and propaganda. The letter also stated that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs had “repeatedly expressed its concerns” that the GEC was “contributing to the censorship of American voices” via grants and collaboration with “private organizations that conduct operations in both the U.S. and foreign countries.” It continued by stating the GEC was “ineffective at preventing or stemming foreign misinformation and disinformation.” ²

The letter continued by mentioning that many of the inquiries concerned the relationship between the GEC and other organizations, including U.S. technology companies and NGOs that “conduct censorship worldwide.” The letter noted that the GEC was subject to “at least two GEC-related federal lawsuits claiming First Amendment violations.” The two lawsuits were Missouri v. Biden and Daily Wire, LLC v. United States Department of State. ²

According to the letter, in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the GEC, directly and indirectly via the Election Integrity Partnership, a project founded in 2020 to defend election integrity against alleged online misinformation, “communicated with social media companies to identify American-origin posts as mis- or disinformation and effect their takedown,” many of which were posted during the 2020 election cycle. ²

The second lawsuit highlighted the GEC’s “funding and promotion” of the Global Disinformation Index, a London-based think tank focused on combating alleged disinformation on online news sites, and NewsGuard, a web browser extension that rates the trustworthiness of online news sites based on nine criteria, providing a trust score between 0 and 100. The Global Disinformation Index has been accused of promoting censorship against conservative news outlets, costing them millions of dollars in advertising revenue, while NewsGuard has been accused of being biased against emerging online conservative media and favoring traditional newspapers. ^{2 5 6}

The letter continued by stating that the GEC had “refused to disavow its past support of entities, like the GDI, that censor domestic speech.” ²

The GEC was reorganized as the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) after its closure. R/FIMI was shut down in April 2025 by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Secretary Rubio noted that it is the “responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom of Americans to exercise their free speech.” He continued by stating that this was the reason why he was announcing the closure of the GEC, adding that it “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” ⁴

People

Daniel Kimmage became acting special envoy and coordinator for the Global Engagement Center on January 20, 2017. Prior to this position, Kimmage had covered counterterrorism issues for the Office of Policy Planning and was the principal deputy coordinator of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. Kimmage was also an independent consultant and senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute from 2008 until 2010, and before that, was a regional analyst at Radio Free Europe. ⁷

Leah Bray became the Acting Coordinator at the GEC on July 1, 2021, until December 15, 2022. While an officer in the U.S. Navy, Bray served as the director for China at the National Security Council. She also worked as a China policy advisor for the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and the Chief of Naval Operations. ⁸

Government Funding

According to a report by the advisory commission on public diplomacy, focusing on the 2022 fiscal year budget, the Global Engagement Center received $63.1 million out of the $972.1 million of the funding provided by the Diplomatic Programs and ECE funds, which directly supported the U.S. State Department’s Washington, D.C.-based public diplomacy operations that year. ⁹

1. “Global Engagement Center.” U.S. Department of State. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/gec/. 
2. “McCaul, Mast, Issa Send Letter Expressing Concerns with GEC Reauthorization.” Republican Foreign Affairs Committee. July 8, 2024. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/news/press-releases/mccaul-mast-issa-send-letter-expressing-concerns-with-gec-reauthorization. 
3. “Termination of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center.” Congress. December 26, 2024. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12475. 
4. Rubio, Marco. “Protecting and Championing Free Speech at the State Department.” U.S. Department of State. April 16, 2025. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.state.gov/protecting-and-championing-free-speech-at-the-state-department. 
5. Dhillon, Harmeet K. “DHILLON: Microsoft Wants To Pick The News You Read.” Daily Caller. February 12, 2019. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/12/dhillon-microsoft-news/. 
6. Kaminsky, Gabe. “Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news.” Washington Examiner. February 9, 2023. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2749593/disinformation-inc-meet-the-groups-hauling-in-cash-to-secretly-blacklist-conservative-news/. 
7. “Daniel Kimmage.” Accessed August 18, 2025. https://cdn.govexec.com/media/daniel_kimmage_bio_(1).pdf. 
8. “Leah Bray.” U.S. Department of State. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://2021-2025.state.gov/people/leah-bray/. 
9. “2023 COMPREHENSIVE ANNUAL REPORT ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY & INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING.” Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023_ACPD_Annual_Report_508C_v2-1.pdf.