The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a group funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, has lost financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for its role in demonetising conservative news outlets. Breitbart News has more.
“[G]iven our commitment to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly, we no longer provide financial support to GDI,” Damon Wilson, CEO of NED, told Breitbart News in a statement.
“As set forth in our Articles of Incorporation and the NED Act, our mandate is to work around the world and not in the United States,” Wilson explained. “We have strict policies and practices in place so that NED and the work we fund remains internationally focused, ensuring the endowment does not become involved in domestic politics.”
Wilson also noted the organisation only recently became aware that GDI was “funded by a different donor, that focused on specific U.S. media outlets.”
According to a source with knowledge of NED’s decision to defund GDI, GOP House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was instrumental in ensuring that GDI no longer would receive financial support from NED. Stefanik, an NED board member, has been concerned about the targeting of conservative voices and media, especially GDI seeking to demonetise them.
NED’s decision to defund GDI is significant because NED is funded by the State Department. Financial documents show that NED has received over $300 million from the agency since 2021. Critics say the State Department’s funding of NED and its prior relationship to GDI was “a Government grantmaking body” despite its legal status as a not-for-profit organisation.
“The State Department should not be funding woke organisations who seek to censor and demonetize conservative outlets,” Stefanik said last week. “House Republicans will assert our oversight over the State Department’s funding of these type of groups.”
Worth reading in full.
Good to see the cancellers being cancelled. Now perhaps the U.K. Government can stop funding the GDI as well?
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