Veteran US spokesman back to fight disinformation

Jamie Rubin, a former State Department spokesman and veteran commentator, will return to the US government as an envoy to fight disinformation, a rising concern of Washington, it was announced Friday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken named Rubin as special envoy and coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which is tasked with analyzing and countering disinformation.

Rubin will work to “recognize, understand, expose and counter foreign state and foreign non-state propaganda and disinformation that threatens the security of the United States, our allies and partners,” Blinken said in a statement.

He will fight “foreign disinformation and propaganda from foreign actors including Russia the People’s Republic of China, Iran and foreign violent extremist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda,” he said.

The Global Engagement Center was established in 2016 with an initial eye on countering messages from extremist groups but it has since focused heavily on China and Russia.

The center says that Russia has been especially active in disinformation as it seeks to counter US pressure over its invasion of Ukraine.

Rubin, 62, served as spokesman and a close aide to secretary of state Madeleine Albright from 1997 to 2000, during which he often spoke for the United States during the NATO military campaign against Serbia over Kosovo.

He then become a commentator on foreign affairs and an academic, initially based in London where he moved with his then wife, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour.