New Disinfo Office To Combat Foreign and U.S. ‘Public Opinion’

The Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, announced Thursday that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) formed a new disinformation agency — the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC).

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, while alluding to legislation passed a year ago, Haines testified that “Congress put into law that we should establish a Foreign Malign Influence Center in the intelligence community; we have stood that up.”

“It encompasses our election threat work,” she added, “essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, but it also deals with disinformation more generally.”

According to the legislation Haines refers to, it would allow the FMIC to track disinformation campaigns from a foreign country but also “the public opinion within the United States.”

Haines goes on to say that the FMIC will work with the Global Engagement Center.

“What we have been doing,” the intel head continued, “is effectively trying to support the Global Engagement Center and others throughout the U.S. government in helping them to understand what are the plans and intentions of the key actors in this space: China, Russia, Iran, etc.”

According to Racket News, then-Vice President Joe Biden’s adviser and now head of the State Department Antony Blinken “oversees” the GEC, “one of the most important U.S. Government anti-disinformation initiatives (see #TwitterFiles 17), and is now alleged to have initiated his own disinformation campaign related to the Hunter Biden laptop.”

Furthermore, as reported by The Intercept and according to Air Force Reserves intelligence officer Maj. Neill Perry, the creation of FMIC is “puzzling” because it mimics the objective of the GEC.

“The decision,” Perry writes, “to create a new agency is puzzling for two reasons. First, the FMIRC [Foreign Malign Influence Response Center, an earlier name for the FMIC] duplicates the mission of the GEC. The GEC already produces assessments on influence operations, including a team of thirty data scientists who monitor the public information environment and share their analysis with the State Department and interagency partners.”

“Second, Congress did not elaborate on how the FMIRC would work with the GEC. In passing this legislation, Congress did not eliminate the GEC or reduce its mission. Not only does the GEC continue to exist, it may soon wield greater resources. In May 2021, the Senate passed legislation that would double the GEC’s annual budget.”