CA Judge Stops Trump Admin From Firing Internet Speech Police

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared in April that the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub (R-FIMI) was dead. But, because of legal interference, it turns out that for now, R-FIMI, formerly called the Global Engagement Center (GEC), is only mostly dead.

Through the miraculous powers of an activist judge, San Francisco’s Senior District Judge Susan Illston ordered Friday that the Trump Administration must not dismantle R-FIMI, the creepy censorship arm within the Department of State that curtails free speech.  

The argument continues over whether the president has the authority to reorganize the federal workplace and trim excess employees or if only unelected local judges have that authority for the entire nation.

In her June 13 order, Illston said the State Department’s planned employee separations from R-FIMI are prohibited by a previous injunction, and if the State Department plans any other similar actions, it better check with Judge Illston first.

“If the State Department has any question about whether planned actions fall within the scope of the Court’s injunction, the Court ORDERS the Department to first raise those questions with the Court before taking action,” Illston wrote.  

President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14210 in February, announcing large-scale reductions in force (RIFs) across the administration and directed agency heads to prepare for the RIFs in the Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management and Budget, plus the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor,  Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, AmeriCorps, Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, National Labor Relations Board, National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, and the Department of State.

In May, Illston issued a preliminary injunction preventing the administration from reorganizing and cutting staff at these government agencies. That was in response to a lawsuit brought by federal union employees connected to the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO.

Rubio made the case that the State Department is not subject to the injunction and planned to move forward with cutting employees and sunsetting R-FIMI, until Illston’s order put that on pause.  

Funded at $50 million a year, R-FIMI is a 2016 creation of former President Barack Obama, who convinced the public it was needed to find and stop foreign, especially Russian, disinformation. It helped grease the wheels of the Russian election interference hoax that marred Trump’ first term. The agency was used instead to pressure tech companies to meddle in the 2020 election, as The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood previously reported.

The Federalist as well as its Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway and CEO Sean Davis were among those censored by the agency.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.