‘Unconstitutional and Should Be Dissolved Immediately’: Josh Hawley Slams Biden’s Disinformation Board

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Thursday issued a letter condemning President Biden’s newly announced Disinformation Governance Board.

“At first [I] thought this announcement was satire,” Hawley wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. “Surely no American Administration would ever use the power of Government to sit in judgement on the First Amendment speech of its own citizens.”

“Sadly, I was mistaken. Rather than protecting our border or the American homeland, you have chosen to make policing Americans’ speech your priority. This new board is almost certainly unconstitutional and should be dissolved immediately,” he continued.

Hawley characterized the appointed head of the board, Nina Jankowicz, as a radical Democrat, and cited her  suggestion that Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was Russian disinformation. Just last week, Jankowicz referenced Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and noted concern that “free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms.”

“By all means, let’s regulate social media. But let’s do it with proper thought and consultation, with the nation’s best interests at heart, not with the sweep of a sharpie in response to a specter of ‘political censorship’ that doesn’t exist,” Jankowicz tweeted in 2019.

Hawley also criticized Jankowicz for claiming Donald Trump has fomented “homegrown fascism,” along with alleging America is a systemically racist nation.

Hawley concluded the goal of Biden’s disinformation board is to use the federal government to censor Americans on social media platforms. The Biden administration announced the board just days after Elon Musk inked the purchase of Twitter.

“While Democrats have for years controlled the public square through their big tech allies, Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has shown just how tenuous that control is,” he said. “It can only be assumed that the sole purpose of this new Disinformation Governance Board will be to marshal the power of the federal government to censor conservative and dissenting speech.”

“This is dangerous and un-American,” he added.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.