Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) released a series of documents that he said show the Department of Homeland Security’s long-maligned Disinformation Governance Board ran deeper than Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated during testimony to the Senate over the summer.
Hawley, who along with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has spearheaded the conservative effort to force a full investigation of what the board was and how much work it accomplished before it was unceremoniously shuttered following a widespread outcry from Americans of all political leanings.
“In June, a whistleblower came to me and @ChuckGrassley with docs exposing Biden’s plans for a Disinformation Board to suppress Americans’ speech,” Hawley tweeted Wednesday. “Now DHS has – under duress – turned over new emails that show more of what they’ve been hiding.”
In June, a whistleblower came to me and @ChuckGrassley with docs exposing Biden’s plans for a Disinformation Board to suppress Americans’ speech. Now DHS has – under duress – turned over new emails that show more of what they’ve been hiding
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 30, 2022
Hawley shared three sets of documents, all of which can be found on the senator’s website. The senator said some of these documents suggest Mayorkas misled the Senate during previous testimony and that the board had completed at least some work before its disbanding.
“[Secretary] Mayorkas told me under oath that the Disinfo Board hadn’t met yet back in May,” Hawley tweeted. “But DHS emails reveal their Disinfo “Steering Group” held weekly meetings starting as early as February. The Board was up and running.”
Hawley also shared documents that indicate the board had already begun communicating with Big Tech companies, each of which the board planned to partner with in an effort to create a shared disinformation strategy.
“DHS’s collusion with Big Tech went much deeper than we knew,” Hawley tweeted. “The Board discussed an ‘analytic exchange’ with Big Tech, and emails reveal plans for a meeting with the Facebook official who suppressed the @newyorkpost Hunter Biden story.”
DHS's collusion with Big Tech went much deeper than we knew. The Board discussed an “analytic exchange” with Big Tech, and emails reveal plans for a meeting with the Facebook official who suppressed the @newyorkpost Hunter Biden story pic.twitter.com/rqUzllHoUs
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 30, 2022
The official to whom Hawley referred was Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy for Meta.
On the same day as the document release, Hawley also made public a letter he wrote to Mayorkas in which he complained the secretary had stonewalled sharing documents and then heavily redacted those documents he eventually shared.
“I would have hoped you would be more forthcoming,” Hawley wrote. “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.”
Hawley also stated in the letter that he would release all DHS documents he received “so Americans can judge for themselves your agency’s efforts to censor speech.”
Likely, in addition to being a chance to remind Americans of how unpopular the board had been, Hawley’s document sharing is also connected to a larger effort by Republicans to set the stage to impeach Mayorkas in the new year. Conservatives have criticized the DHS head for having concocted the disinformation board and failed to adequately address a crisis at the U.S. southern border.