The Biden administration’s new disinformation czar is, herself, a “human geyser of misinformation,” and the embryonic, misbegotten experiment in government regulation of speech should end, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tells The Heartlander.
In the other big story of the week, Hawley says the Supreme Court opinion leaker should be disbarred, if a lawyer, and criminally prosecuted if applicable.
Nina Jankowicz, director of Homeland Security’s new “Disinformation Governance Board,” repeatedly spread untruths about such things as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which she called Russian propaganda and a “Trump campaign product,” Hawley noted. Since then, liberal media outlets that helped spread that lie have admitted they were wrong, and that the laptop was real and problematic.
In sharp Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Wednesday of Jankowicz’s boss, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Hawley also quoted Jankowicz as writing in a book that supporters of President Trump in Congress “are homegrown purveyors of disinformation” – defined as misinformation disseminated purposely.
“Why don’t you just dissolve this board?” Hawley asked Mayorkas. “I mean, you haven’t heard a single senator support this board. It is an abomination, it is unconstitutional, and frankly it is embarrassing. And the fact that you’ve chosen this person to lead it is appalling.”
“There’s no reforming it. There’s no changing it. It shouldn’t exist,” Hawley told The Heartlander.
Hawley has filed legislation that would:
- Dissolve the Disinformation Governance Board effective immediately. It also removes the position of executive director, a role currently filled by Jankowicz.
- Prohibit the Secretary of Homeland Security from re-establishing the board, or any similar successor entity, or authorizing substantially similar activities elsewhere in the department.
- Require the secretary to disclose all records related to the board in a report to Congress within 30 days, including all communications about the board’s formation, the appointment of individuals to serve on the board and any legal review of its constitutionality.
Hawley told The Hearlander that the disinformation board is “really no surprise from an administration that thinks that parents are domestic terrorists and wants to use the FBI against them. So, no wonder that now they want to police what people are saying on social media, or who knows what other channels of communication.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, also pummeled Mayorkas.
“I have a greater respect for the American people than you do. I think the American people can figure out the truth,” Paul told him at the committee hearing.
As for the Roe v. Wade revelation this week, authorities already have found it necessary to erect security barriers around the Supreme Court building. Now liberal activists are saying they’ll target conservative justices in their homes.
“To try to threaten the justices and their families to try to get this decision changed, it is wrong and it is dangerous to our Constitution,” Hawley told The Heartlander.
