{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mcbride.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-mcbride-responds-alarming-reports-trump-administrations-censorship-human", "Rep. McBride Responds to Alarming Reports of Trump Administration\u2019s Censorship of Human Rights Reports", "2025-08-15", "2025", "2025-08", "Democrat", "House", "DE", "Sarah McBride", "M001238", "mcbride.house.gov", "mcbride", "https://mcbride.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WILMINGTON, DE \u2014 Following newly reported details that the Trump administration has deliberately edited and delayed the State Department\u2019s annual Human Rights Reports to omit references to abuses by authoritarian governments, Congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-DE) issued the following statement:\n\n\u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s efforts to whitewash the world\u2019s worst abuses in these reports is outrageous and dangerous. These reports are not supposed to serve dictators\u2014they are supposed to serve democracy. Our silence in the face of oppression helps no one but the oppressors.\n\n\u201cAs I said during a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, the gutting of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor\u2014along with the firing of thousands of dedicated public servants\u2014has left the United States incapable of living up to its values. And now we see the consequences: months-long delays, censored reports, and the systematic erasure of human rights violations from the official record.\n\n\u201cThe State Department\u2019s annual human rights reports are a lifeline for activists and journalists around the world. Scrubbing them to protect dictators isn\u2019t just morally wrong\u2014it endangers lives. It betrays what America stands for.\n\n\u201cWe cannot claim to lead the free world if we are too afraid to speak the truth about tyranny.\u201d\n\nIn the July 23 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Under Secretary of State Allison Hooker, Rep. McBride raised urgent concerns about the dismantling of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the delay in publishing the 2024 Human Rights Reports, and the Trump administration\u2019s ongoing efforts to obstruct transparency and oversight in human rights monitoring.\n\nIn reporting by the Washington Post, the Trump administration censored critical findings in this year\u2019s human rights reports\u2014including removing references to political prisoners, government-directed killings, and persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals\u2014at the direction of political appointees in Secretary Rubio\u2019s office.\n\nDuring the July 23 hearing, Rep. McBride stated:\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what to make of these actions. Either this administration is appallingly indifferent to human rights abuses and human trafficking\u2014or they are trying to cover up and paper over the scale of human rights abuses and human trafficking around the world.\n\n\u201cAnd quite frankly, given this administration\u2019s efforts to cover up abuses by Jeffrey Epstein and other powerful men, it appears that there is a pattern here with this administration. The powerful get to do what they want, whether it's powerful men here or strong men around the world, and this administration will cover for them.\u201d\n\nRep. McBride has led efforts in Congress to resist the Trump administration\u2019s dismantling of human rights infrastructure at the State Department. She has co-sponsored H.R. 2602, the Defending American Diplomacy Act, and H.R. 1196, the Protect U.S. National Security Act, which would block unauthorized reorganizations of the State Department and protect USAID\u2019s independence.\n\nRep. McBride has also signed multiple bipartisan letters demanding accountability, including a January 2025 letter condemning Secretary Rubio\u2019s purge of career staff, a February 2025 letter on the national security implications of gutting USAID, and a March 2025 letter demanding the firing of known white nationalist Darren Beattie from the State Department.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T14:57:50Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://mcbride.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-mcbride-responds-alarming-reports-trump-administrations-censorship-human"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9136369917541742, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}