President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 3, 2025 (Pool via AP).
President Donald Trump‘s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., has sent a letter to the nonprofit behind Wikipedia — the free online encyclopedia “anyone can edit,” according to the website — accusing it of “masking propaganda that influences public opinion” and “permitting information manipulation” in benefit of “foreign powers,” the letter says.
Ed Martin, who is the president’s nominee to oversee the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, wrote that the Justice Department would be probing the “content manipulation” to see if Wikimedia Foundation was “engaging in a series of activities” that could violate its “obligations under Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code,” which is what ultimately gives the organization its ability to operate as a nonprofit exempt from paying taxes.
“Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States,” Martin alleged.
“Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission,” the interim U.S. attorney said. “In addition, Wikipedia’s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers. Again, educational content is directionally neutral; but information received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia’s informational management policies benefit foreign powers.”
The letter, which was first reported by The Free Press on Friday, brought up issues that have been raised recently by other organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, which accused Wikipedia of being an online channel for “widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel bias” in March.
“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,” the Wikimedia Foundation told The Washington Post in a statement Friday, declining to address the Martin letter specifically. “Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge,” the nonprofit added.
Wikipedia has been criticized by people — including Trump ally and unofficial DOGE leader Elon Musk — as of late for allowing what many have perceived to be “woke” information about current events and topics to be edited in.
“Stop donating to Wokepedia,” Musk posted on X in December 2024.
Wikipedia editor Molly White told The Post she viewed Martin’s letter as the Trump administration “weaponizing laws to try to silence high-quality independent information.”
White wrote on X, “Not to tell anyone how to do their jobs or anything but if i was a US attorney i might not write whole letters laying out how i was targeting nonprofits specifically for first amendment protected activities.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the DOJ and Wikimedia Foundation for comment on Sunday were not immediately successful.
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