We need accountability for federal employee purges made on false pretenses

I was grilling chicken on a sweltering summer night in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, when I peeked at my phone and saw that a senior official in the administration had just accused me of lying to Congress.

This was unpleasant but unsurprising. MAGA acolytes had spent years vilifying the work I did in government to fight foreign propaganda and disinformation. When they gained power, they shuttered my office and fired most of my colleagues. They finally pushed me out of the State Department a few weeks ago.

The campaign against us grew out of broader allegations about a so-called “censorship industrial complex” — a cabal of bureaucrats, progressive activists, and tech industry insiders who had supposedly conspired to censor conservatives online.

In April 2025, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio closed our office — known for most of its existence as the Global Engagement Center — he falsely alleged that it had been deeply involved in that supposed conspiracy. He claimed that we had “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.”

To put it bluntly, no evidence at all supports that smear. More than 30 civil servants who had done nothing wrong lost their jobs. Offices with the same mission at the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and in the intelligence community met similar fates.

As a result, dozens of programs to fight Russian disinformation, Chinese propaganda, and Iranian cognitive warfare came to an end.

The effects have already made themselves felt. Global perceptions of the U.S. have nosedived, with more and........

© The Hill