As first reported by The Free Press, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin (who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve permanently in that role of DC’s top prosecutor) has accused “Wikipedia (of) allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.” Martin claims that “information received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia’s informational management policies benefit foreign powers.” These and other serious accusations are contained in a four-page letter sent to “Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. AKA Wikipedia” in Washington, DC on April 24. Martin alleges that the WMF’s activities violate IRS rules for 501©(3) non-profit organizations, so its tax-exempt status should be removed, and has given the Foundation until May 15 to respond.
Major concerns cited in the article include:
- foreign (non-US) actors spreading propaganda;
- the dominance of non-US citizens on the Board of Trustees;
- accusations from Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on the non-neutrality of the encyclopedia’s content.
Martin’s letter to the WMF asks twelve detailed questions, including:
“4. What steps has the Foundation taken to exclude foreign influence operations from making targeted edits to categories of content in order to reshape or rewrite history? Who enforces these measures, and how? What foreign influence operations have been detected, and what did the Foundation do to reverse their influence and prevent it from continuing?”
The Free Press notes that “the letter is unusual, since investigations into charities and their tax-exempt status are typically handled by the IRS.” Moreover, Nonprofit Quarterly reported at length on the difficult and lengthy process required by US law to remove a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status.
Note that federal law (26 US Code Section 7217) prohibits senior officials of the executive branch, including the president, from requesting that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conduct or cease an audit or other investigation of any taxpayer (including tax-exempt entities); there is an exception for written requests by the treasury secretary to the IRS as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy. […] Congress would seemingly have such authority, but, to date, such legislative action has not been publicly contemplated.
The Washington Post covered the Free Press article, writing that Martin’s letter “is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration and its allies, including Martin, against institutions, media outlets and online platforms they have accused of pushing liberal agendas or political views.” The newspaper also reached out to Molly White, who viewed the letter as part of the administration’s attempts at “weaponizing laws to try to silence high-quality independent information”, as well as Wikipedia beat reporter Stephen Harrison, who said that Martin “seems to want an America First version of Wikipedia”, rather than a global information source.
An earlier WaPo article reported that Martin had appeared over 150 times as a guest commentator on Russian state-controlled broadcasters RT and Sputnik from August 2016 to April 2024. Among his statements, he had told “an interviewer on the same arm of RT’s global network that ‘there [was] no evidence’ of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia’s security concerns,” nine days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Martin did not declare any of these appearances on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire for his upcoming confirmation vote or possible conformation hearing. Several of Martin’s appearances on Russian propaganda outlets are shown in another WaPo video.
The Verge also reported on the original Free Press story, while adding that “Martin is known for thinly justified legal threats against media organizations,” having recently sent similar letters to various medical journals, including “the New England Journal of Medicine, the CHEST Journal, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, accusing them of being ‘partisan in various scientific debates.’”
In addition to her previous comment for WaPo, Molly White told The Signpost that “the biggest harm here is not to Wikimedia, but to the rule of law and to free expression. Letters like this, threatening organizations over clearly First Amendment-protected activities, are a shocking illustration of the authoritarianism that has rapidly blossomed under Trump. I’m proud that Wikipedia continues to prioritize accurate and scientific information as determined by its global volunteer editing community and its policies, not the political propaganda of a single administration looking to impose its views.” White published an op-ed on similar topics on the January 15 issue of the Signpost.
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales himself took part in a discussion on the matter at Village pump, while a WMF spokesperson released this statement to the media:
The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, the backbone of knowledge on the internet, and other free knowledge projects. Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles written to inform, not persuade. Wikipedia’s content is governed by three core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research, which exist to ensure information is presented as accurately, fairly, and neutrally as possible. The entire process of content moderation is overseen by nearly 260,000 volunteers and is open and transparent for all to see, which is why we welcome opportunities to explain how Wikipedia works and will do so in the appropriate forum. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.