Top Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee are pressing President Donald Trump to prioritize and strengthen the administration's efforts to counter Russia's and other U.S. adversaries' propaganda campaigns.
The urgent message from the bipartisan group of key House lawmakers comes the same day the administration slapped new sanctions on Russia for meddling in U.S. elections and cyberattacks.
Rep. William "Mac" Thornberry (R., Texas), who chairs the panel, along with Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), the ranking member, and Reps. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) and Jim Langevin (D., R.I.), last week sent a letter to Trump expressing concern with Trump's delays in funding and fully staffing the State Department's Global Engagement Center, or GEC.
"We write to urge you to enable and fully resource the GEC to effectively execute its roles and responsibilities in leading the United States efforts to counter the exploitation of the information environment by state and on-state actors aimed at undermining U.S. national security interests," the lawmakers wrote in a letter released Thursday.
The letter was written nearly a week before the White House announced a raft of new sanctions against Russian individuals and intelligence agencies for the 2016 election meddling and cyber attacks.
The lawmakers complained that Trump has yet to appoint a director to lead the GEC and that the Department of Defense has yet to transfer the full $60 million Congress authorized for its budget in the 2017 defense authorization bill.
"The 2018 [National Security Strategy] identifies priority actions, such as innovation and driving effective communications that the GEC is well-poised to lead as a result of this law," the lawmakers wrote. "We are therefore disappointed that to date your administration has not provided adequate resources, including funding and personnel, to the GEC to carry out its mission and, furthermore, that you have not yet appointed a director to lead the agency in this endeavor."
"We implore you to immediately appoint a director of the GEC to lead our nation's effort against this threat," they added.
President Barack Obama created the GEC in 2016 in response to the proliferation of Islamic State propaganda, disinformation, and online recruiting. Its goal was to work across government agencies to counter the messaging in a coordinated, coherent manner.
The Center was supposed to be a new and improved version of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Coordination, which operated with a meager $5 million budget and counterterrorism experts ridiculed as ineffective in its use of social media to engage in arguments with jihadists.
Instead of disbanding the effort, Obama upped the funds to $15 million and relaunched it as the GEC with a similar mission of countering the online influence of international terrorists.
Before the 2016 presidential election, Congressional interest in information warfare focused nearly exclusively on online terrorist recruitment and incitement of other radicals.
However, there were a few members of Congress—Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), the ranking member—who were voicing concerns about Russia's efforts to weaponize information as early as 2013.
To counter Russia's "weaponization" of information, Royce and Engel called for an overhaul to the Broadcasting Board of Governors—the agency with a budget of more than $600 million charged with leading U.S. communication efforts to counter foreign government propaganda.
Last year, after the extent of Russian meddling in the 2016 election became fully known, Congress decided to focus on the GEC and greatly expand its mission.
Instead of just countering terrorist online messaging, Congress set a new mission: To "lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the federal government to recognize, understand, expose and counters foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United Sates national security interests."
The GEC is now responsible for countering information warfare campaigns from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, as well as extremist groups and terrorists.
The Senate and House Armed Services Committee agreed to authorize the Department of Defense to transfer up to $60 million for the role—still a paltry sum compared to the BBG's budget of more than $600 million but large for a single State Department office.
Members of Congress still do not believe the GEC has the tools to carry out the new and now far more urgent mission in the wake of Russia's bold and sophisticated operations.
The bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote in their letter that it is past time for the Trump administration to make the GEC a priority.
"Our nation must bolster efforts to counter exploitation of the information environment," they wrote. "We can no longer afford to assume the risk exploitation incurs to our citizens and our democratic institutions and values."