Fact vs. Fiction: What Georgia’s Security Chief Mamuka Mdinaradze actually said and how Senator Jeanne Shaheen and her colleagues manipulated his interview

A recent letter from several US senators and congress members, sent to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was based on false claims about statements made by Georgia’s State Security Service Chief Mamuka Mdinaradze.

The lawmakers call on Rubio to receive guarantees from the Georgian government that former USAID Foreign Service staff and other US-employed personnel will not be victims of slander or targeting. They also demand that the State Department respond strongly to the falsehoods disseminated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which have put former US personnel in danger.

It is noteworthy that the American lawmakers’ letter was based on a statement by Mamuka Mdinaradze, the head of the State Security Service, who allegedly accused the US government of inciting a revolution by paying salaries to Foreign Service employees. The senators clarified that the US government relies on local personnel to carry out work under the direction of US departments and agencies.

In reality, during the interview, Mamuka Mdinaradze spoke about the scheme describing how funds are channeled through various networks to implement radical plans. Mdinaradze refrained from giving more specific details but noted that “from Thailand, there are people in Georgia funded by the embassy of one country for anti-Chinese purposes, and in about 95-98% of cases, this money goes to radicals acting against the government”.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze also commented on the issue, explaining that since 2022, some non-governmental organisations have been directly involved in revolutionary processes. According to him, this meant that “at the time, revolutionary processes were openly financed from American sources through NGOs”. The Prime Minister also clarified that the Head of the State Security Service did not have in mind the pension funds transferred by USAID.

Tamar Taliashvili, the Georgian Ambassador to the US, had a meeting on this topic at the Department of State. Prime Minister Kobakhidze stated in response to journalists' questions that the Ambassador spoke in a friendly environment with the interested parties and that everything was clarified.

Accordingly, as a result of active communication, the Department of State was provided with full information regarding the key points and content of Mamuka Mdinaradze’s interview. Despite this, several congressmen, who are supposedly informed about the truth, still based their appeal to Marco Rubio on a lie, which was subsequently used by biased media outlets operating in Georgia to spread additional disinformation.