Mike Benz criticises US ‘double standards’ over Georgia’s foreign influence law protests

Mike Benz, a former US Department of State official and the Executive Director of the Foundation For Freedom Online, on Monday commented on the mass protests held in Georgia in May 2024 over the foreign influence law, accusing Washington of applying double standards toward countries pursuing legislation similar to that of the United States.

Benz argued that while the United States has enforced the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for decades, it strongly opposes other nations - including Georgia - adopting comparable legal frameworks. According to him, this opposition stems from Washington’s desire to maintain influence over political processes abroad.

He claimed that it is in the US interest for foreign governments and societies not to know which individuals or organisations are funded through institutions such as the US State Department, USAID, or the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Benz suggested that the lack of transparency allows these entities to operate freely and shape local political developments.

In his remarks, Benz also alleged that Georgian demonstrators who confronted police using Molotov cocktails and pyrotechnics were, in reality, supported through US-linked funding channels. He described it as “paradoxical” that protesters were demanding to remain uninformed about which media outlets, NGOs, and influencers might be secretly financed by foreign powers.

“No, we literally placed our hired people. The people who went out into the streets are our influence nodes. They are on USAID payroll, on State Department payroll, on NED payroll - and we sent them there to stop a law that would let Georgian society know that we sponsor them”, Benz said.