The White House
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Attend the National Christmas Tree Lighting
Washington, DC
https://youtu.be/92A9VSvLSyc
Senator Hawley’s letter to Secretary Mayorkas
Dear Secretary Mayorkas:
I write concerning new documents relating to Nina Jankowicz and the Disinformation Governance Board. As you know, on June 7, 2022, Senator Grassley and I expressed alarm over your decision to establish an unconstitutional Disinformation Board within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that letter, we published documents obtained through a whistleblower that outlined the pervasive scope and ambitions of the Disinformation Board. It is clear based on the latest documents you have finally turned over that the Department still has not told the truth about its continuing efforts to censor political speech.
On May 4, 2022, in response to my questioning, you testified, “The board has not yet met.” That was untrue. Documents that your own Department recently produced to my office show that the Disinformation Governance Board’s Steering Group met as early as February 4, 2022, and was meeting on a weekly basis. Shortly after Ms. Jankowicz onboarded, she requested “a copy of the last 2-3 steering group meeting agendas.” Despite your assertions to the contrary, the board appeared to have operational authorities: Ms. Jankowicz indicated it was the responsibility of Disinformation Board members to “ensure that their respective components implement, execute, and follow Board decisions.”
Our whistleblower documents previously revealed that the Board was engaging with Twitter on possible censorship activities. These new records show even more Big Tech companies were involved. The Disinformation Board planned to meet with Nathaniel Gleicher of Meta (formerly Facebook), who was head of security policy at that company during the controversy over the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and had contacts with the Omidyar Network, a liberal dark money group which has poured millions into combatting “misinformation”.
The documents further show that the Disinformation Board’s Executive Director, Nina Jankowicz, repeatedly pushed for DHS to establish an “analytic exchange” with “industry partners”—possibly a portal for Big Tech companies to coordinate speech suppression with the government. She also pressed for so-called disinformation experts to meet with the Board, including one who wrote that “[c]onservative consumers are more likely to be susceptible to fake news and misinformation” and “most fake news is conservative-leaning.” Another expert she identified has posted about “Why Poor Whites Chant Trump” and argued that “Anti-immigrant disinformation is strongly associated with the ideology of exclusion and native supremacy that underpin [sic] right-wing popularism and far-right extremism.” We now also know that when you finally abolished the Disinformation Board, the Board’s deputy, Elizabeth Kozey, was hired into the White House, where she works in the National Security Council’s Resilience & Response Directorate.
A federal court recently concluded that an official in your department is “supervising the ‘nerve center’ of federally directed censorship.” In light of that, I would have hoped you would be more forthcoming. Instead, you have continued your blatant attempt to avoid transparency and sidestep congressional oversight. The documents you turned over to my office, six months after I requested them, are so heavily redacted most are illegible.
So that Congress can consider remedial legislation, please provide unredacted copies of all documents produced to Congress as well as all records responsive to my oversight requests dated April 28, May 23, July 7, July 13, September 21, and November 14.
As part of my investigation into the Disinformation Board, I will be releasing for the public all documents in my possession so Americans can judge for themselves your agency’s efforts to censor speech.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1598063309429051392
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-grassley-demand-answers-new-whistleblower-documents-exposing-dhs-disinformation-board
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/2022-06-07 DOCS ONLY CEG JH to DHS (Disinformation Governance Board)[1].pdf
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022-11-30-Senator-Hawley-DHS-Tranche-1.pdf
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022-11-30-Senator-Hawley-DHS-Tranche-2.pdf
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022-11-30-Senator-Hawley-DHS-Tranche-3.pdf
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022-11-30-Senator-Hawley-Letter-to-DHS.pdf