Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday revealed newly obtained documents that appeared to challenge DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ May testimony on the controversial Disinformation Governance Board.
In an open letter to Mayorkas, Hawley said the new documents expose that the Board’s plans to partner with Big Tech were ‘far more extensive’ than DHS or the Biden administration has previously acknowledged.
Hawley and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, published documents obtained by a whistleblower earlier this year detailing the scope of the Board.
Hawley said the new documents show that the Board’s Steering Group met on Feb. 4, 2022 – and were meeting on a weekly basis – despite Mayorkas’ testimony on May 4, 2022, that ‘the board has not yet met.’
The new documents further reveal, Hawley said, that Big Tech was more deeply involved in censorship activities than previously thought.
According to Hawley, the new records show that the Disinformation Board planned to meet with Nathaniel Gleicher of Meta, who headed the company’s security policy during the suppression of The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
Another revelation from the new documents, Hawley said, the Board’s short-lived Executive Director, Nina Jankowicz, pushed for DHS to establish an ‘analytic exchange’ with ‘industry partners’ – possibly so that Big Tech companies could coordinate ‘speech suppression’ with the government.
‘[Y]ou have continued your blatant attempt to avoid transparency and sidestep congressional oversight,’ Hawley wrote to Mayorkas. ‘The documents your turned over to my office, six months after I requested them, are so heavily redacted most are illegible.’
Hawley requested that Mayorkas hand over all documents produced to Congress as well as records responsive to his previous oversight requests. Per his investigation into the Board, Hawley said he will be releasing all of the documents in his possession ‘so Americans can judge for themselves [DHS’s] efforts to censor speech.’
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.
DHS canceled plans for the Board in August after it was put on ‘pause’ in May. Mayorkas first announced the creation of the Board during testimony in April before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
‘The goal is to bring the resources of (DHS) together to address this threat,’ Mayorkas said during the hearing, adding that the department was intended to focus on the spread of disinformation in minority communities ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
It was later reported that Nina Jankowicz, who previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, would head the Board as executive director. Jankowicz resigned from her post after less than a month on the job amid the board’s dissolution. She recently registered as a foreign agent.
