Trump Administration Shuts Down U.S. Office Tracking and Reporting Foreign Disinformation
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday the closure of the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R/FIMI), which countered foreign disinformation campaigns.
R/FIMI was tasked with tracking and countering global disinformation from foreign actors or entities, such as groups funded by U.S. rivals like China and Russia, and terrorist groups, according to The New York Times.
In a statement, Rubio said that it is the responsibility of U.S. government officials to protect Americans' ability to exercise their free speech. He said, without providing evidence, that R/FIMI was being used to “actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving. This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceinvable it was taking place in America.”
The road to closing R/FIMI began weeks ago, according to the Times. U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting the office for review in January 2025. In March, the State Department fired roughly 80 contractors working for the office and ended nearly all contracts related to the office's work. And yesterday, 16 April, all of the office’s employees—roughly 40 people—were placed on paid leave.
“Previously, the center exposed a major disinformation campaign in Africa, and last year put together an international agreement—now removed from the State Department’s website—to counter foreign disinformation that had the backing of around two dozen other nations,” according to Politico.
Darren Beattie, a political appointee, now leads the office and organized the firings. After Beattie began working at the State Department, he gained access to current and former employees' email accounts to find evidence of censorship of conservative ideas, according to U.S. officials who spoke with the Times.
The R/FIMI office was a 2024 successor to the Global Engagement Center, which was originally created in 2011 to counter propaganda produced by terrorist groups. Critics of the center claimed that it was censoring American conservatives.
In an editorial on the decision that was written by Rubio and published in The Federalist, a right-leaning website, Rubio said that the decision is part of the administration’s effort to “recommit this country to its core constitutional free speech principles at home.”
The R/FIMI’s closure joins the growing number of efforts to monitor and stem foreign influence efforts in the United States dismantled by the Trump administration. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) shut down the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and scaled down enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to The Washington Post.
