DHS SUSPENDS "Disinformation Board"

Less than three weeks after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the newly formed “Disinformation Governance Board,” the DHS announced this board is officially suspended.

Some of the members of the board are not happy about that. Nina Jankowicz, who would have been the Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board, has resigned from the board and the DHS altogether.

ACLJ Chief Counsel and my dad Jay Sekulow summed up what happened here:

Here is what we have. You have this government agency, the Department of Homeland Security, which set up a Board of Governance for misinformation and disinformation, and we attacked it. And now it is fair to say . . .  it is completely falling apart. And then to add to that, Nina Jankowicz, who was running it, is now gone . . . but the fact is, folks, buckle your seatbelts – they will try this again, and maybe they won’t announce it next time.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou pointed out that what the government was about to engage in would have been a violation of the Constitution:

It was a violation of the Constitution of the United States and of the traditions of free speech . . . It was an attempt to create a ministry of truth. . . . Our FOIA request, our outspokenness with respect to this, our assertion of tradition to the United States and American values, I think instilled a great fear in the central Government and into the Left-wing Government that we have in Washington. They said they are onto us; they are coming after us. The spirit of the American people is not going to be fooled by these kinds of tactics. So, what did they do? They suspended their operations. Their leader . . . resigned and is out of this thing, because the fear of what is being done to the American people was expressed by us in no uncertain terms. And we have in many ways prevailed on a very serious matter, and that is doing away with this horrid, unbelievable ministry of information, ministry of truth, board, call it what you will.

Andy added that this would’ve been the greatest threat against free speech that he has seen:

I have been practicing law for 47 years. I have never seen any attempt of overreaching by the federal government into our minds, into our thoughts, into our brain . . . The Left decided we are going to overreach and . . . those of us who believe in traditional values and the sanctity of the Constitution raised Cain about it, filed FOIA requests, told them, “We are going to come after you” because we aren’t going to permit this to happen in the United States of America. And what happened is, they turned tail in fear and trembling and ran; but . . . we don’t stop here, we persist in our FOIA request. I want to find out the information that we requested in our Freedom of Information Act request. I want to find out who was responsible and who did this so that they can be identified and not hide behind the shield of whatever it was that they were trying to do.

And we will persist in our FOIA efforts to get to the bottom of this. ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett explained how important this process is to make sure this never happens again:

This is a classic example of why we always engage in a multi-pronged effort on this . . . the FOIA litigation, the propensity to expose what they are doing in a court of law, that is always one prong. We always go to the United States Congress as well; obviously, they have access to more information. Senator Josh Hawley was very influential on this also acting quickly – really in about the same time frame we did. The third prong is always the court of public opinion. I really think that is the most significant one. They were shamed into shutting this board down. . . . It is a classic example of how we get a quick victory. But I want to say this, they were operating behind the scenes long before this announcement. The reason we are not going to pull this FOIA back is we want to make sure they don’t operate behind the scenes using a different figurehead going forward, waiting for all of this to blow over, and then just implement the exact same thing. They will try again one day, and we are going to be there when they do. And the information we get out of this FOIA, that is going to be the most significant weapon in making sure that the next time they try it, they don’t succeed either.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even further in-depth analysis of the DHS suspending the Disinformation Governance Board.

Watch the full broadcast below: