‘Doing Nothing is Not an Option:’ Congress Demands Anti-Russian Propaganda Plan

"I urge you to come up with a strategy and work with Congress to implement it at once," New York Representative Eliot Engel, ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Tillerson. "Otherwise, the House and Senate will look for legislative alternatives to direct the administration to treat the threats of Russia and [Daesh] with the seriousness they deserve."

Sent on Friday but revealed to the public Monday, Engel’s letter was prompted by reports that Tillerson was uneasy about using the nearly $80 million Congress has allocated to fight alleged misinformation from Moscow, instead opting to make amends.

Currently, $60 million earmarked for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center is at the Pentagon and another $19.8 million has been left untouched at the State Department, Politico reports. The Global Engagement Center is a unit that replaced the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication in 2016, and is "charged with coordinating US counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences," according to its site. Though Tillerson’s team has indicated they want to avoid spending money wastefully, the $60 million will be reabsorbed on September 30 if it isn’t transferred, officials told Politico. 

"It seems again that this Administration just isn’t getting the message about Russia, so let me put it plainly: Russia is not America’s friend," Engel stressed. "President Putin attacked American democracy."

"Doing nothing is not an option," the congressman warned. 

If Tillerson fails to respond, lawmakers may once again take it upon themselves to tie US President Donald Trump’s hands on foreign policy, according to reports, as they did with the most recent sanctions bill, which put restrictions on the president’s ability to modify sanctions against Russia.

"While we, too, would ultimately like to see better relations with Russia, the Kremlin’s actions simply do not permit such improvement," Engel noted.

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