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Pompeo Eyes Fox News Reporter to Head Counterpropaganda Office

The troubled agency is charged with responding to Russian influence operations.

By Robbie Gramer, Elias Groll | September 6, 2018, 9:40 AM

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is eyeing a Fox News correspondent and former U.S. Navy pilot to head the State Department’s struggling anti-propaganda office as Washington grapples with how to push back against Russian disinformation and election interference in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Lea Gabrielle is the leading contender to become the new chief of the Global Engagement Center, five officials and sources familiar with internal deliberations confirmed to Foreign Policy. The news was first reported by CNN.

Once an obscure office buried deep within the bureaucracy of Foggy Bottom, the center has emerged as a political lightning rod in Washington amid an intense debate over how to counter Russian election interference and propaganda.

But the Trump administration’s disjointed response to Russian influence operations has left the center starved of cash and leadership at a time when senior intelligence officials are warning that foreign propaganda efforts are increasing.

Current and former officials described the office as mismanaged, disorganized, disempowered, and unable to effectively dole out money to do its principal job—just as it is set to receive a substantial tranche of funding through the Defense Department.

“We’re really in bad shape with that center,” said one State Department official familiar with the Global Engagement Center. “They’re a mess.”

Founded as a clearinghouse for the government’s efforts to push back against social media-savvy terrorist groups—such as the Islamic State—the center’s portfolio has been dramatically expanded in recent years to also include responding to state-backed propaganda.

But veterans of the State Department’s public diplomacy efforts questioned whether the center has the wherewithal to focus on the more wide-ranging activities of Russia or Iran.

“I would question whether it’s set up to be able to counter state propaganda,” said Adnan Kifayat, who directed an earlier iteration of the center, when it was known as the Global Strategic Engagement Center.

“Given its resources, it’s more geared toward counterterrorism,” he said.

The center first entered the limelight in August 2017, when FP and Politico reported that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson rejected some $80 million from Congress and the Pentagon budget to bankroll the center’s anti-propaganda efforts targeting both terrorist organizations and Russian disinformation.