Thread by @MikeBenzCyber

BREAKING 🚨 The US State Department has just placed all 30 full-time staff at the Global Engagement Center’s remnant known as R-FIMI on leave, eliminated all 50 full-time staff positions and delivered a notice to Congress ending R-FIMI’s existence and $65 million in funding 🧵👇

This historic development today was made possible by @SecRubio and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy @DarrenJBeattie, as part of a complete restructuring of the State Department’s activities and capacities to prevent the abuses and weaponization of the past.

@SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie The development today is the State Department’s initiation of a RIF (Reduction In Force) that will permanently end the positions at GEC / R-FIMI, so there is no more reshuffling of positions or simple renamings of the office to carry out the same malign censorship efforts.

@SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie While GEC was formally sunset late last year after a showdown in Congress to deny its reauthorization, the Biden State Department got around this by putting GEC’s staff and operations under a new name: the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R-FIMI).

@SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie Last month, @SecRubio and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy @DarrenJBeattie terminated 100+ contractors that R-FIMI worked with, which formed a deep partner web between censorship operatives in the private sector and the muscle of the US gov’t to go after speech.

@SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie But in gov’t, it’s easier to terminate a contractor than a public employee. The structuring of today’s move as Stage 1 of a RIF to eliminate the office and dissolve the office entirely prevents the possibility of bureaucratic delays that come from contesting firings.