Sarah Rogers Leads Trump’s Plan to Fund Far-Right Groups in Europe - Global Project Against Hate and Extremism
estimated reading time: 12 min As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah B. Rogers is leading a Trump administration grantmaking strategy to financially support MAGA-aligned organizations in Europe, presenting it as part of Washington’s 250th anniversary of U.S. Independence and an effort to promote so-called “American values” abroad. Rogers, a lawyer, joined the Trump administration in October. Since then, she has repeatedly characterized the Digital Services Act (DSA), legislation that regulates certain types of online content in the European Union, as a form of censorship. She argues that this alleged form of speech restriction is spreading across the continent. The U.S. administration has leveraged this dispute with the EU and European governments to amplify Christian nationalist rethoric and anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant narrative. “I want to promote free speech in Western allied democracies, and that’s what my grant making is going to be doing,” Rogers said during a panel discussion in Budapest on February 9. So far, the names of the European institutions aligned with the Trump administration that are expected to benefit from this funding have not been disclosed. Shortly after joining the U.S. government, Rogers openly signaled her willingness to collaborate with organizations linked to the MAGA movement. In an interview on The Charlie Kirk Show in October, she announced that her department would “be working with Turning Point USA to implement multiple international programs dealing with topics like free speech.” The TPUSA Connection Rogers’ ties to the Trump administration can be traced back to Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), who was assasinated during a speaking event at Utah Valley University in September. Prior to joining the government, Rogers represented Kirk on U.S. First Amendment issues. Blake Neff, producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, elaborated on this connection in an interview conducted after the Under Secretary of State assumed her role. “Charlie was asking for people who should pitch the administration. He asked me, he asked a lot of people, and I remember Sarah was one of the first two [people] that I sent a resume for. I said: ‘Get her in something, she is extremely smart,’” Neff recounted. Andrew Kolvet, the show’s host, added that Rogers’ confirmation represented “a continuation of Charlie’s legacy.” Sarah Rogers during her interview on The Charlie Kirk Show in October 2025. (Source: Youtube). Before joining the Trump administration, Rogers was a partner at Brewer Attorneys & Counselors. In a State Department press release, she is credited with having “litigated a winning Supreme Court appeal under the First Amendment challenging the ‘debanking'” of the National Rifle Association after a New York official sought to dissuade companies from doing business with the group following a deadly school shooting. In 2024, Rogers also represented the playwright David Mamet in an amicus brief in support of a Texas law that sought to limit platforms’ ability to moderate content based on political viewpoint, according to Semaphor. It is a position she no longer appears to embrace in her current role in the Trump administration. According to her State Department biography, Rogers “spearheaded and supported challenges to social media censorship and the weaponization of law enforcement, including in connection with the successful appeal of the wrongful conviction of Douglass Mackey.” Mackey, a far-right activist, had been convicted in 2023 of conspiracy against rights and sentenced to seven months in prison for spreading falsehoods in the 2016 presidential election. He had posted false memes that said supporters of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton could vote for her by text message or social media post. Last July, a federal appeals court overturned that conviction, a legal victory Rogers now counts among her credentials. A “Free Speech” Tour Since taking office, Rogers has made two trips to Europe. The first was in December 2025, when she met with politicians and allied organizations in the U.K., France, and Italy. The second took place between February 5 and 15, covering Ireland, Hungary, Poland, and Germany. In both cases, the State Department’s press department emphasized that her objective was to “reaffirm the Trump Administration’s commitment to defending freedom of speech and digital freedom.” In the U.K., Rogers participated in an event organized by the Prosperity Institute (formerly the Legatum Institute). The theme was “repealing the Online Safety Act [the UK version of the EU’s Digital Services Act] and restoring free speech in the UK.” Prosperity Institute post about the December event. (Source: X). She shared the panel with Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s head of policy, representing Nigel Farage’s political party. Toby Young, who runs the Free Speech Union also took part. The panel included Andreas Hellman from Americans for Tax Reform; and Fred de Fossard, Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute. Christopher Butler, Director of the Tholos Foundation, rounded out the speakers. According to the organizers, the Tholos Foundation “builds coalitions of economic conservatives in support of free-market principles and freedom of expression worldwide.” Sarah B. Rogers reposting content from the UK-based Free Speech Union. (Source: X). This foundation has recently gained prominence at European far-right events. It was one of the American sponsors of an anti-LGBTQ+ summit held on February 3 at the European Parliament, an event also backed by other US-based anti-LGBTQ+ organizations including the Heritage Foundation, ADF International, and Family Watch International. The Prosperity Institute, which hosted Rogers in December, is run by the UAE-based Legatum Group, according to Desmog. Legatum also co-owns GB News, the right-wing broadcaster where Farage works. During her December visit, Rogers gave an interview to the network. The Free Speech Union is a conservative pressure group that has actively opposed the UK’s Online Safety Act, Britain’s version of the DSA. The U.S. administration has grouped the two digital security laws together, considering both to be forms of alleged censorship. On her second trip to Europe, Rogers participated in the Budapest Global Dialogue, organized in the Hungarian capital on February 9. She shared the panel with Balázs Orbán, Political Director to the Hungarian Prime Minister; Sohrab Ahmari, editor of UnHerd; and Paul Coleman, Executive Director of ADF International (ADFI). Sarah B. Rogers speaking at the Budapest Global Dialogue. (Source: X) This event was organized by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a non-profit research “think tank” owned by the Hungarian state and controlled directly by the Office of the Prime Minister. The event was also co-hosted by the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank that works closely with the local government on international policy initiatives. From a stage in Budapest, Rogers spoke of a “censorship” crisis in the West, which she linked to efforts to “diffuse and disguise responsibility to avoid political accountability.” She went on to attack “other European censorship laws,” the DSA and its content moderation practices, claiming these decisions are made with “no public docket of what exact content was flagged and why.” However, the DSA actually requires platforms to be more transparent. Under the regulation, users must be notified when their account is restricted and have the right to appeal. Tech companies are also required to publicly disclose their moderation policies and how they implement them, according to the European Commission. The Trump administration labels Europe’s online speech rules on digital platforms as alleged “free speech” violations and an attempt to impose European legal standards on U.S.-based tech companies. Undermining the DSA from Washington For far-right actors and the Trump administration and MAGA movement, content moderation, particularly of hate speech, is framed as an assault on free speech and “religious freedom.” This narrative serves to legitimize the targeting of specific communities, especially LGBTQ+ people and migrants. These statements echo Project 2025, the authoritarian governing blueprint produced by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump administration. The playbook discusses alleged government-social media collaboration “to censor politically harmful news,” and accuses the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of overstepping its mandate by targeting what it calls “censorship of so-called misinformation and disinformation.” As part of her campaign against the DSA, Rogers is developing an online portal that, according to Reuters, would enable users in Europe and elsewhere to acces material prohibited by national authorities, including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda. Embracing autocratic allies Notably, Rogers delivered her remarks on “censorship” from Hungary, a country that the European Parliament has classified as an “electoral autocracy” under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Through a series of constitutional and legal changes, Orbán has systematically consolidated control over the country’s independent institutions. Freedom House currently rates Hungary as “partly free,” with a score of 65 out of 100. Since joining the State Department, Rogers has not shied away from engaging with think tanks linked to the Hungarian Prime Minister. In November, she met with members of the board of the Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR), a propaganda arm of Orbán’s regime that also organizes CPAC Hungary. After the meeting, CFR Director General Miklós Szánthó praised Rogers as “a true freedom fighter” and stated that they “support her mission.” CFR Director General Miklós Szánthó posted about his meeting with Rogers in November 2025. (Source: X). Beyond Hungary, Rogers has connected with far-right governments across Europe, including representatives from Italy’s government and members of Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s team. In Poland, she stopped at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), one of Central and Eastern Europe’s largest state research institutes. The institute was headed by Nawrocki from 2021 until he launched his presidential campaign. Critics have accused the IPN of promoting a politicized version of history. According to Balkan Insight, the IPN played a “central” role in the nationalist-populist Law and Justice government’s “politics of history” agenda. “The IPN is responsible for, among other things, promoting a very particular patriotic, if not slightly nationalistic, narrative of Polish history: heroic, cleared of historical nuances, with a strong anti-Communist bias as well as anti-Russian and anti-German overtones,” the outlet reported. Engaging with Farage’s party These engagements abroad mirror a broader pattern that extends well beyond her digital footprint. As her department is drafting grants to support MAGA-aligned think tanks in Europe, she and her team have already discussed these funding plans in the U.K. and France. The Financial Times reported that Rogers engaged with senior figures from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party to discuss this plan. Additionally, Politico revealed that State Department officials have opened early conversations with Western Arc, a recently founded French think-tank that describes itself on its website as a “conservative do-tank inspired by MAGA America.” In her effort to build alliances in Europe, Rogers hosted Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) parliamentarian Markus Frohnmaier in Washington in December 2025. Frohnmaier, the party’s foreign policy spokesman, was part of the AfD delegation that traveled to the U.S. for meetings with American officials. AfD, now the second-largest party in Germany’s parliament, is challenging in the courts its classification by Germany’s domestic intelligence as a “right-wing extremist” organization. Authorities cite the party’s Islamophobic mesagging, describing it as a threat to the country’s democratic order and saying it “disregards human dignity.” Additionally, several AfD politicians have been linked to neo-Nazi groups. Picture posted to X by Markus Frohmaier on December 16, 2025, showing his meeting with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers. (Source: X). Frohnmaier later posted a photo of his meeting with Rogers. According to his social media account, their conversation focused on Trump’s National Security Strategy, released in November 2025. The document claims that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” as a result of mass migration and expresses support for “patriotic European parties.” “Germany should, through a consistent turnaround in migration policy and the independent organization of European security, once again act as a capable leading power in order to strengthen the German-American partnership on equal terms,” Frohnmaier wrote on X. In 2019, several European media outlets reported on Frohnmaier’s ties to the Kremlin. Der Spiegel revealed that a Russian Duma strategy paper sent to top Russian officials advocated supporting Frohnmaier’s candidacy in 2017 to secure a fully controlled representative in the German parliament. The AfD lawmaker denied the allegations. Echoing her president’s racist rhetoric and Trump’s hardline immigration stance, Rogers has characterized migrants in Germany as “barbarian rapist hordes.” Rogers has also come to the defense of Dutch Identitarian and anti-immigrant influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek after the U.K. revoked her visa-free travel access, stating that her presence would not be “conducive to the public good.” Vlaardingerbroek is a vocal proponent of the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges that political elites are secretly orchestrating a “replacement” of the native white population with non-white immigrants. Rogers reposted a tweet by ADFI claiming “European censorship poses a global threat.” (Source: X). The Trump administration’s pushback against the DSA —spearheaded by Rogers, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, and Republican representatives— mirrors the stance of Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI). The organization has engaged in panel discussions, hearings, and public campaigns, arguing that the EU legislation “risks censoring global speech.” Rogers echoed this narrative in February by sharing an ADFI post on X warning that “European censorship poses a global threat.” Promoting ADFI’s agenda From her public office, Rogers has not hesitated to speak out on some of ADFI’s landmark European cases. One such case involves anti-abortion activists convicted in the U.K. for breaching a legally protected buffer zone outside an abortion clinic. In an interview on The Charlie Kirk Show, Rogers described arrests for “acts like praying silently” near these facilities as a “shocking reality.” On February 7, she met with Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, another ADFI client. In April 2021, Räsänen was charged with three counts of incitement against a minority group over anti-LGBTQ+ remarks she made after her church partnered with organizers of a local Pride event. One charge stemmed from a tweet in which she cited a Bible verse, denouncing the partnership as “shameful” and “sinful.” Following a hearing in October 2025, she is now awaiting a ruling from Finland’s Supreme Court. ADFI has leveraged this case to argue that laws against hate speech, such as the one used against Räsänen, are discriminatory against Christians. After their meeting, Rogers maintained that there are “nuances of her case that should stun any Western lawyer.” Rogers posted a picture with Päivi Räsänen after their meeting in Washington. (Source: X). With his inflammatory rhetoric against European laws moderating digital content, Rogers has become a prominent figure in the far-right and MAGA movement on both sides of the Atlantic in just a few months. This has led to high-profile figures such as Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk lauding her message.
Supporting freedom of speech globally means: Trying to close down Voice of America. Funding right-wing extremists in Europe. Orwell would have wept.
