No wonder that James Rubin – a relic of the (Bill) Clinton-era State Department, is the one even to this day beating the drum of the supposedly exceptionally powerful and effective Russian control of speech and narratives, all around the world.
And, fully in line with the partisan fervor, Rubin – the former head of the former US Department of State’s (former) Global Engagement Center, GEC – claims Republicans falsely accused GEC of pushing censorship, and in that way, worked to reinforcing “Russian lies.”
There is at least one place where this kind of rhetoric is still genuinely well-received – and, for obvious reasons, it’s Kyiv.
However, Rubin, who was at the helm of GEC from 2022 until its shuttering in 2024, is doing his country no service by suggesting that just because of a change of administrations, the US is now allowing Russia free global reign.
It’s not surprising Ukraine’s authorities are willing to – via alignment to them (and that would these days be all media outlets in the country) – promote Rubin saying those critical of GEC were merely repeating “Russian lies.”
Rubin, apparently in a moment of Orwellian inspiration, “redefines” what is censorship in any world (other than his own, and that inhabited by those willing to regurgitate his rhetoric now) – as no more than “providing more information.”
And, it isn’t even surprising that he launches a political attack against Republicans, once again suggesting their supposed “alliance” with Russia, and defining the reasons behind the termination of GEC as the result of President Trump and Republican “(beginning to feel) that by opposing Russian information operations, we were somehow opposing the points of view of certain members of the Republican Party.”
What was actually happening – spearheaded for a number of years by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government – was that GEC, along with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and the Stanford Internet Observatory got disbanded in late 2024/early 2025 for working against the American people – not for working in favor of the Russian state.
The Judiciary Committee established via a thorough process that involved document disclosures and witness testimonies, that these entities engaged in First Amendment violations and interference in the election process (the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story being a prominent example.)
