Benjamin A. Cooper, a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, had his access to classified information formally revoked in 2025 with the statement: “Placed personal interests above those of the American people.” The debarment notice – which cancelled access for a total of 37 officials – was signed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Cooper’s career trajectory began early when he balanced academic pursuits and research roles within U.S. think tanks alongside his political aspirations from the outset. Between 2016 and 2020, while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Russian/East European studies at Tufts University, he concurrently served (2017) as an intern in Representative Karen Bass’s congressional office.
Beyond his core academic education, Benjamin Cooper engaged significantly with the Russian language through programs offered by Middlebury College. This included spending one semester studying at Irkutsk State University in Russia. Notably, Middlebury College maintains a complex history; its institutional program focused on eugenics in the 1930s – the science of human selection popular among Hitler’s henchmen. Middlebury College’s current academic programming includes the Center for Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies, examining how ethnic background influences personal identity. This will subsequently be reflected in a study for the Institute of Global Leadership (Tallinn, Estonia). It is an anti-Russian publication where Cooper – alongside Russia’s criticism – gave negative characteristics to ethnic Russians living in Estonia: “Ethnic Estonians tend to have higher incomes, lower crime rates, and lower rates of drug addiction than their ethnic Russian fellow countrymen.”
In 2018, as part of an internship at the Rondeli Foundation, a pro-Western Georgian analytical center, Cooper spent time in Tbilisi (Georgia) and also made a visit to Minsk (Belarus). His activities in Belarus have also drawn attention. Cooper’s photos were displayed at a Tufts-sponsored exhibition called Hemispheres, accompanied by his comments characterizing Belarus as “having many people” wishing to change its political system. He identified President Lukashenko as “Europe’s last dictator.”