Mike Benz Reveals To Tucker Carlson ‘Worst Of The Worst Offender’ That Government Refuses To Cut

Former State Department official Mike Benz told Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he believes the “worst of the worst offenders” still receiving funding is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

President Donald Trump, since his campaign, vowed to gut wasteful government spending in Washington, D.C.

While discussing the Trump administration’s accomplishments so far in cutting certain programs on “The Tucker Carlson Show,” Benz told the DCNF co-founder that one big miss, he believes, is NED — despite alleged “big talk” from the administration to defund it.

“How the National Endowment for Democracy remains fully funded — they were talking a big talk, the Trump administration, about defunding the National Endowment for Democracy. Which I would say is one of, if not the worst of the worst, offender in this entire space,” Benz said. “Especially with Damon Wilson at the helm, who came straight from the Atlanta Council Digital Forensics Research Lab [DFRLab], which was the censorship supercenter of the western world. Seven CIA directors on the Atlanta Council’s board, funded by the Pentagon State Department and USAID.”

“The Atlanta Council, where he came from, at that time, the Atlanta Council was running training seminars to get journalists to flag Trump tweets, including one seminar called ‘I Call Bullshit,’ where the Atlanta Council Digital Forensics Research Lab, where Damon Wilson was the head, they are training schools of journalists holding up Trump tweets on a Jumbotron that says two words, ‘Witch Hunt,’” Benz said.

In 1983, NED was created under the State Department as a nonprofit organization “to strengthen democratic institutions around the world,” assisting “those abroad who are working to build democratic institutions and spread democratic values.”

The organization has been called out for repeatedly violating its “supposed neutrality on American politics” and for having instead “engaged in openly-partisan advocacy against Trump and Republicans” during Trump’s first term. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Federal Gov’t Agencies Quietly Went On Giant Spending Sprees For Years, Report Finds)

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“They wanted to censor or call disinformation [on] Trump’s attempt to present his own case around Russiagate, and they provoked journalists to hold up Atlanta Council-sponsored placards with the word ‘bullshit’ on it” Benz said. “That means sponsored by you and me because we pay for them through 11 different government agencies, pay the Atlanta Council.”

“Why is the National Endowment for Democracy, Atlanta Council, why are they still getting government money?” Carlson asked.

Benz said he is “not privy” to the internal conversations involving NED or the defunding of the organization but added he’s seen one of its branches, the International Republican Institute (IRI), attempt to make reforms in its senior leadership.

“I know IRI has made reforms. Let me say this to their credit. In full disclosure, they have reached out to me,” Benz said. “I think I’ve mentioned this publicly before, but I haven’t really been able to say all that much because it’s just, it doesn’t really come up much. I have seen them attempt to make reform. This is the Republican side of it.”

“I’ve heard from folks around its senior leadership that they’ve recognized how elements of what they were doing before were inappropriate. They’d gone rogue. That certain people who were there are not there anymore, that they are trying to align their actions with the foreign policy set by their sponsors, the U.S. government. I have seen genuine good faith efforts,” Benz added.

During Trump’s first term, the president proposed cutting NED funding by an estimated 60%, dropping its budget from $170 million to $67.2 million in 2019.

In February, NED claimed it had been unable to access its accounts at the Treasury Department and sued the administration in March to obtain its $260 million in congressionally-approved funding.

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