Kamlager-Dove Holds First Hearing as Top Democrat on House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, Calls out Republican Hypocrisy on Free Speech

WASHINGTON, DC- Today, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, delivered opening remarks at the inaugural Subcommittee on South and Central Asia hearing, which ignored pressing bipartisan national security issues to instead repeat Republicans' false claims of right-wing censorship.

Watch the full video here.

Below are Ranking Member Kamlager-Dove's remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today's subcommittee hearing:

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here for our first South and Central Asia Subcommittee hearing. I look forward to working with the Chair in a bipartisan way on the critical issues we are charged with overseeing.

Unfortunately, we're not having a hearing about any of those. Instead, this Subcommittee is wasting taxpayer time and resources on the fifth such hearing Republicans have held across multiple committees on the so-called "censorship-industrial complex."

The majority is relitigating a made-up conspiracy theory about a part of the State Department that no longer exists to distract from the dumpster fire foreign policy this Administration is pursuing-and elevating a serial sexual harasser as their star witness in the process.

Mr. Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter into the record two articles about the Republican witness Matt Taibbi: A Chicago Reader article titled, "Twenty years ago, in Moscow, Matt Taibbi was a misogynist a--hole-and possibly worse," and a Washington Post article titled, "The two expat bros who terrorized women correspondents in Moscow."

This hearing could not be more out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans.

People's retirement savings are being decimated as Trump's arbitrary tariffs tank the stock market.

They are staring down the barrel of cuts to their Social Security and Medicare because the Republican majority wants to give a tax break to billionaires like Elon Musk who have deep financial ties to our adversaries.

Meanwhile, Trump is siding with Putin against American national security interests and risking the lives of American troops in a Signal group chat.

I've been to the State Department, and I do have concerns about censorship-censorship of the employees who are terrified to say the wrong thing or have the wrong word in their job title and be terminated by an Administration that publicly relishes punishing people for their speech.

If we want to talk about censorship, we should begin with Trump's unprecedented assault on the First Amendment and rule of law.

Here a few examples that should send shivers down all our spines:

Trump banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One because they kept using the name "Gulf of Mexico", something that none of us would have hesitated to do until a few months ago.

Trump signed executive orders targeting law firms for representing clients that opposed or investigated him-upending the fundamental principle that lawyers should not fear to represent their clients.

And most terrifying, Trump ordered ICE agents to arrest and detain Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, and snatch off the street a Tufts University student and visa holder, Rumeysa Ozturk, for protesting and writing an op-ed-for exercising their right to free speech.

As you can see, Trump is brazenly weaponizing the government to intimidate and silence any part of American society that disagrees with him.

Countering disinformation from hostile foreign powers should not be a partisan issue. Yet this Administration has crippled our capacity to respond to these threats while aiding, abetting-even amplifying-our adversaries' influence operations.

The PRC has invested billions in pumping out propaganda, weaponizing the world's largest known online disinformation operation to silence critics, discredit lawmakers, and harass U.S. companies who are at odds with China's interests.

Russia maintains a sophisticated and sprawling disinformation apparatus to manipulate American public sentiment to Putin's advantage-even paying conservative influencers to create and amplify pro-Kremlin content.

How has Trump confronted these threats?

He shut down independent media broadcasters like USAGM and Radio Free Asia, a move that was actually celebrated in Chinese state media.

He dismantled the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, which his own Administration first created in 2017 to uncover foreign disinformation and propaganda targeting Americans.

He even appointed a white nationalist named Darren Beattie, who has parroted Kremlin and CCP talking points and denied the PRC's ongoing Uyghur genocide, to the State Department's top public diplomacy job.

Mr. Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter into the record my letter urging Secretary Rubio to fire Darren Beattie for his dangerous anti-American, pro-CCP, white nationalist ideology.

Countering foreign propaganda has become politicized not because of censorship concerns, but because of conspiracy theories, in some cases spread by the majority witnesses at this very hearing. And now the most egregious disinformation spreader is sitting in the White House.

We should be exploring real bipartisan solutions to this pressing national security issue on behalf of the American people, not perpetuating culture war divisions.

Thank you Mr. Chair and I yield back.

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