Is this some of that disinformation the Biden administration is talking about? Jen Psaki on Friday twice claimed that the Biden administration’s Orwellian and ominous new Disinformation Governance Board isn’t really new at all, and in fact, was started not by Old Joe or his DHS hatchet man, Alejandro Mayorkas, but by one Donald J. Trump. Psaki delivered this whopper with a clear tone of What are all you racist, redneck, MAGA-hat wearing yahoos getting all upset about? This was all your guy’s idea. She offered no evidence, and there doesn’t seem to be any for her to have offered.
Psaki said this under question from Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich, who noted that both Mayorkas and Psaki had expressed some unfamiliarity with the bizarre fascist who will be heading up the Ministry of Truth, Nina Jankowicz. Heinrich asked Psaki, “How was she hired if you and the White House are not familiar with her and Mayorkas is not familiar with her statements? What’s the process for, um, putting her into a position like this, and who’s in charge of hiring her?” Indeed — although it’s clear that Jankowicz, who bills herself on her website as “an internationally-recognized expert on disinformation,” is an enthusiastic proponent of government censorship who has been preparing for this job for her entire professional life.
She then launched into a potted history of Jankowicz’s career:
Well, let me give you a sense of who she is. She’s an expert on online disinformation. She was formerly in the Wilson Center as disinforma– she was formerly a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center. She’s testified before Congress, as well as the United Kingdom and European Parliament, advised a Ukrainian foreign minister, particularly relevant in this moment, under the auspices of a Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and overseeing Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. Any hiring decisions are up to the Department of Homeland Security, but this is a person with extensive qualifications. What I will tell you about the, um, Board and what the Board is doing, this is a continuation of work that began at the Department of Homeland Security in 2020 under former President Trump.
Heinrich followed up with a question about Jankowicz’s video in which she tells people not to vote for those who supposedly spread “disinformation,” and Psaki responded by claiming again that the Board was “again, a continuation of the work of the former president, so for anyone who’s critical of it, I don’t – I didn’t hear them being critical of the work under the former president, which is just interesting to note contextually.” She went on to explain that the Board would fight “misinformation spread by human smugglers,” which she said was work begun in the Trump administration, and added semi-coherently: “This is also work, um, that is helping to, uh, address unauthorized terrorism, other threats, and see how disinformation and misinformation is being pushed to lead, uh, to increase those.”
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Now wait a minute. Politico revealed the existence of the Board on Wednesday, it said that the Department of Homeland Security was “standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board.” The “standing up” locution is strange, but “new” is a fairly unambiguous word. If the Board is new, it’s not a continuation of a Trump administration initiative. Mayorkas confirmed this on Thursday, saying: “We have just established a mis- and disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security.” He didn’t say anything about continuing work begun during the Trump administration, either.
Also, it’s a matter of simple common sense. Imagine if the Trump administration really had established some entity that was meant to combat “disinformation.” Amid all the Left’s hysterical propaganda about Trump being a “fascist” who was bent on destroying “our democracy,” do you really think that we would only be hearing fifteen months after Trump left office that he had established a board to police speech? The news would have been shouted from every rooftop. Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter and Rachel Maddow would have spent weeks warning us about this threat to “our democracy,” while the New York Times and Washington Post would have run feature after feature about how authoritarian rulers always claim that speech that opposes their agenda is “disinformation.”
Search the net for “Disinformation Governance Board,” and all you’ll find are stories about this new Board that Biden’s handlers have just created. If there is any truth in Psaki’s claims, and there is no indication that there is, the Trump-era entity went by another name and was so far from being a Ministry of Truth or a Thought Police that not even the Leftist media, always avid for anything they could hang around Trump’s neck, made anything of it. It strains credulity well beyond the breaking point. Ms. Psaki, you have been found guilty of disinformation. Please report to Ms. Jankowicz for reeducation.
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