Tillerson rejects $80 million to fight Russian and ISIS propaganda — and his reasons are alarming:
"President Barack Obama expanded the unit’s mission at the end of his term after intelligence agencies concluded Russia had flooded social media with fake news and phony Twitter accounts to influence the 2016 elections, and lawmakers from both parties want a stronger U.S. response. President Donald Trump wants to cut State Department funding, so Tillerson is trying to spend less of it — not more. “They use the reorganization as an excuse to not act on anything,” one former State official told Politico. “That’s why people doubt the motivations of the reorganization. They think it’s all about starving the beast.” But a former senior State Department official told Politico that Tillerson aide R.C. Hammond suggested the secretary of state doesn’t want to fully fund the unit for fear of angering Putin. Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship from Putin after signing deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft."
