'Cover-Up of a Cover-Up': Lawsuit Accuses Trump State Dept of Hiding Human Rights Violation Records

A coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of State over its refusal to release congressionally mandated reports on international human rights abuses.

The Council for Global Equality (CGE) has accused the administration of a "cover-up of a cover-up" to keep the reports buried.

Each year, the department is required to report on the practices of other countries concerning individual, civil, political, and worker rights protected under international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Governments and international groups have long cited these surveys as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative sources on the state of human rights, informing policy surrounding foreign aid and asylum.

The Foreign Assistance Act requires that these reports be sent to Congress by February 25 each year, and they are typically released in March or April. But nearly six months later, the Trump administration has sent nothing for the calendar year 2024.

Meanwhile, NPR reported in April on a State Department memo requiring employees to "streamline" the reports by omitting many of the most common human rights violations:

The reports... will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won't condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on "free and fair elections."

Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations...

...reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people will be removed, along with all references to [diversity, equity, and inclusion] (DEI).

Among other topics ordered to be struck from the reports: involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices, arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, serious restrictions to internet freedom, extensive gender-based violence, and violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities.

Last week, The Washington Post obtained leaked copies of the department's reports on nations favored by the Trump administration—El Salvador, Russia, and Israel. It found that they were "significantly shorter" than the reports released by the Biden administration and that they struck references to widely documented human rights abuses in these countries.

In the case of El Salvador, where the administration earlier this year began shipping immigrants deported from the United States, the department's report stated that were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" there, even though such abuses—including torture, physical violence, and deprivation have been widely reported, including by Trump's own deportees.

Human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people were deleted from the State Department's report on Russia, while the report on Israel deleted references to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial and to his government's threats to the country's independent judiciary.

"Secretary Rubio's overtly political rewriting of the human rights reports is a dramatic departure from even his own past commitment to protecting the fundamental human rights of LGBTQI+ people," said Keifer Buckingham, the Council for Global Equality's managing director. "Strategic omission of these abuses is also directly in contravention to Congress's requirement of a 'full and complete report' regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights."

In June, the CGE sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the State Department calling for all communications related to these decisions to be made public. The department acknowledged the request but refused to turn over any documents.

Now CGE has turned to the courts. On Monday, the legal nonprofit Democracy Forward filed a complaint on CGE's behalf in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the department had violated its duties under FOIA to turn over relevant documents in a timely manner.

"The Trump-Vance administration is refusing to hand over documents that could show their culpability in hiding international human civil rights abuses," said Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward's president and CEO.

"The world is watching the United States. We cannot risk a cover-up on top of a cover-up," Perryman continued. "If this administration is omitting or delaying the release of information about human rights abuses to gain favor with other countries, it is a shameful statement of the gross immorality of this administration."