Rep. McBride Responds to Alarming Reports of Trump Administration’s Censorship of Human Rights Reports

WILMINGTON, DE — Following newly reported details that the Trump administration has deliberately edited and delayed the State Department’s annual Human Rights Reports to omit references to abuses by authoritarian governments, Congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-DE) issued the following statement:

“The Trump administration’s efforts to whitewash the world’s worst abuses in these reports is outrageous and dangerous. These reports are not supposed to serve dictators—they are supposed to serve democracy. Our silence in the face of oppression helps no one but the oppressors.

“As I said during a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, the gutting of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor—along with the firing of thousands of dedicated public servants—has 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.

“The State Department’s annual human rights reports are a lifeline for activists and journalists around the world. Scrubbing them to protect dictators isn’t just morally wrong—it endangers lives. It betrays what America stands for.

“We cannot claim to lead the free world if we are too afraid to speak the truth about tyranny.”

In 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’s ongoing efforts to obstruct transparency and oversight in human rights monitoring.

In reporting by the Washington Post, the Trump administration censored critical findings in this year’s human rights reports—including removing references to political prisoners, government-directed killings, and persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals—at the direction of political appointees in Secretary Rubio’s office.

During the July 23 hearing, Rep. McBride stated:

“I don’t know what to make of these actions. Either this administration is appallingly indifferent to human rights abuses and human trafficking—or they are trying to cover up and paper over the scale of human rights abuses and human trafficking around the world. 

“And quite frankly, given this administration’s 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.”

Rep. McBride has led efforts in Congress to resist the Trump administration’s 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’s independence.

Rep. McBride has also signed multiple bipartisan letters demanding accountability, including a January 2025 letter condemning Secretary Rubio’s 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.

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