Inside the US state department, critics are still attacking a shuttered office established to counter foreign propaganda. Now, some of its work is also being resumed

A botched leak of purportedly explosive government files to a prominent conservative online personality was supposed to offer proof of what the Trump administration and its allies have long alleged: that a little-known office inside the US state department, created to fight foreign propaganda, had secretly become a tool for domestic censorship.

Two former high-ranking officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a target of Republican ire that lost its funding in 2024 and was disbanded after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025, say the documents show nothing of the kind.

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© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

Inside the US state department, critics are still attacking a shuttered office established to counter foreign propaganda. Now, some of its work is also being resumed

A botched leak of purportedly explosive government files to a prominent conservative online personality was supposed to offer proof of what the Trump administration and its allies have long alleged: that a little-known office inside the US state department, created to fight foreign propaganda, had secretly become a tool for domestic censorship.

Two former high-ranking officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a target of Republican ire that lost its funding in 2024 and was disbanded after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025, say the documents show nothing of the kind.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/AFP/Getty Images

The administration will work with a private Venezuelan oil company that has close ties to the country’s government.

© Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times