What Are They Hiding? A Year Later, DHS STILL Won't Come Clean About Its Disinformation Board

The Biden regime’s abortive Disinformation Governance Board was a sinister initiative from the beginning. The board’s chief public proponents, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the board’s head, Nina Jankowicz, set off alarm bells when they were never entirely forthright or clear about what the board intended to do. Even now, long after the whole thing went sideways on them when they discovered, to their dismay, that many Americans still valued the freedom of speech, they’re trying to cover their tracks.

The patriotic group Citizens United recently submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for emails between Jankowicz and her staff, but what the group received was so heavily redacted as to be virtually useless. And so the question must be asked: what, at this late date, do Mayorkas, Jankowicz, and their henchmen have to hide?

Just the News reported Tuesday that back when the existence of the Disinformation Governance Board first became public knowledge, Mayorkas was full of bland reassurances, insisting that there was “nothing sinister to hide” and claiming that the Orwellian and authoritarian board was actually based upon “best practices.” But you will no doubt be shocked — shocked! — to learn that this hasn’t actually turned out to be true. Just the News adds that “a year later, Mayorkas’ department is refusing to let Americans see most of the legal justifications and talking points it created to defend the now-disbanded board from ‘blowback,’ FOIA documents showed.”

Citizens United received over 100 pages of Jankowicz’s internal communications with her staff, but most of it was just blank white boxes. “What little is visible makes clear that DHS underestimated the negative reaction the board would provoke and was scrambling to find ways to keep the story from being pushed by ‘hostile’ news outlets.” This is understandable. These people live inside the Beltway, and inside the Beltway, nearly everyone hates the freedom of speech. These little authoritarians had no idea how poorly their act would play outside their echo chamber.

On April 27, 2022, Jankowicz warned her staff: “This afternoon I did start receiving a fair amount of blowback (accusing DHS of being the ‘Ministry of Truth’ etc., lots honing in on ‘Russia’ in the Politico blurb) and some abuse (which I expected and I’m used to).” Used to harsh criticism? Really? Yet earlier this month she claimed that the right-wing fiends at Fox News “made over 500 scaremongering statements about my role, my views, and my personal life,” causing her to be inundated with death threats and upsetting her to the extent that she has not been able to establish the proper relationship with her newborn.

Before Fox supposedly ruined her life, however, she was busy dodging questions about what the board would actually do. “Some of the communications,” Just the News noted, “show the board’s responses to direct questions posed in a letter from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), such as what language in the Constitution allows DHS to create such a board and hire staff for it. Other questions included which parts of DHS would be ‘responsible for monitoring and collecting data’ on misinformation and what ‘specific actions’ DHS intended to take to ‘counter misinformation.’” But don’t expect any clarity: “Each answer was redacted by the department.” What a surprise.

Related: Yet Another Biden Appointee Hates Freedom of Speech

Citizens United President David Bossie remarked: “Joe Biden’s Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board (‘DGB’) is just the latest example of the left’s push to weaponize the massive powers of the federal government for political purposes. Whether it’s the Justice Department, the IRS, or the Department of Homeland Security, the Biden Administration is laser focused on targeting, silencing, and censoring Americans who do not agree with their radical agenda.” As much as Americans may not believe this could be happening here, Bossie is right.

Just in the last few days, we have seen the ATF and the IRS move to target critics of the regime. We have seen the FBI pause from its efforts to frame the former president and Republican front-runner for 2024 long enough to label parents “domestic terrorists” for daring to protest at school board meetings against the far-Left agenda being pushed on their children in primary schools.

We have seen the putative president in a positively insouciant mood after a horrific mass murder in Nashville, apparently because he saw how the massacre could be used to advance his desire to disarm law-abiding Americans. The ongoing secrecy surrounding the Disinformation Governance Board, even a year after this ominous initiative was abandoned, only highlights the fact that this regime has goals that should be a matter of grave concern to every free citizen.