Mayorkas, A DHS

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proxy target for biden? SEE BIDEN IMPEACH fema hurric BS traitor treason

MERRI OK

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andrew ferguson

clarence clerk

mcconnell mafia liar

solic genl virginia AG disinfo bd

rICHMOND, Va. ( abc 7News) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is leading a group of 20 State Attorneys General who are preparing to take legal action against President Joe Biden’s new Disinformation Governance Board, which was unveiled at a time when Elon Musk announced he was trying to purchase Twitter.

“It seems like some people in the Biden administration probably took George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Fourand they thought the Ministry of Truth was somehow a model when in reality, it was a warning to all of us, which is one of the bedrock principles of this country is your first amendment, and it should be protected and the federal government has such broad power that it shouldn't be in the position of a policing speech,” Miyares told 7News.

“I think it could have a chilling effect on what I call the marketplace of ideas. And the one thing about Americans is we feel like we have the freedom to debate and discuss and that's healthy for democracy. The federal government shouldn't be weighing in and possibly having a chilling effect on free speech. And the second is, there's no authority statutorily for them to create this new governing board.”

The Virginia Attorney General is also concerned about the credibility of President Biden’s appointee who is leading the board, Nina Jankowicz, a Virginia resident.

Miyares is calling her a far-left activist who isn’t neutral, and in a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Miyares went as far as calling Jankowicz the “Mary Poppins of disinformation” referring to a TikTok video she published of herself singing a Poppins’ styled song.

“When Rudy Guiliani shared bad intel from Ukraine,” she said. “Or win TikTok influencers say COVID can’t cause pain. They’re laundering disinfo and we really should take note. And not support their lies with our wallet, voice, or voice. Oh!”

Nina Jankowicz on TikTok

Miyares is also concerned with what she said about some parents in Loudoun County, labeling some as dis-informers.

"Critical Race Theory has become one of those hot button issues that the Republicans and other dis-informers who are engaged in disinformation for-profit frankly, there are plenty of media outlets that are making off of it too,” said Jankowicz. “I live in Virginia. In Loudoun County, that's one of the areas where people have really honed in on this topic.”

“The third issue of concern on this is the fact that they claim this is going to be somehow an even-handed review of communications out in the public sphere, and then they appoint the person that's going to be, by all accounts, the referee of what’s fair, an individual that has directly attacked Virginians,” said Miyares. “She went after and criticized heavily concerned parents that were attending school board meetings bringing up a variety of different concerns, including in Loudoun and she was calling them peddlers of misinformation.”

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is defending the work the Disinformation board is doing.

"What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries from the cartels and disseminate that information to the operators,” said Mayorkas.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on CNN

And Mayorkas is defending Jankowicz.

“They say she is not neutral,” said CNN’s Dana Bash. “Your response?”

Read the letter from AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas:

6 pp

AG Miyares To DHS Secretary Mayorkas | PDF | Censorship | United States Department Of Homeland Security

AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas by Don Parker on Scribd

“Imminently qualified,” Mayorkas replied. "A renowned expert in the field of disinformation.”

“And neutral?” asked Bash.

“Absolutely so,” replied Mayorkas.

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mma

“Your time is coming when Trump wins": MAGA media figures claim FEMA committed treason

One commentator said: “Hang them by the necks till they're dead ... I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published 10/15/24

Numerous Trump-aligned media figures have accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its officials of committing treason over its handling of Hurricane Helene.

Those right-wing figures have said that “whoever is running FEMA is guilty of treason your time is coming when Trump wins”; that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “should be in prison for the treason he has perpetrated against this country”; and that someone should “hang” government officials “by the necks till they're dead and let their dead bodies rot while people see what is done to treasonous government. ... I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”

This kind of rhetoric is part of a larger theme: Former President Donald Trump and his media allies have repeatedly promised retribution against government officials and the media if he wins a second term in office.

Media Matters has been documenting the spread of conspiracy theories in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Pro-Trump allies, including those who are scheduled to appear at Trump-affiliated events in North Carolina, have been pushing the conspiracy theory that weather manipulation caused the recent hurricanes.

Vitriol against FEMA has already resulted in real-world consequences. A North Carolina man was arrested for allegedly making an anti-FEMA threats, and The Washington Post reported that “threats against federal emergency response personnel have hampered relief work in parts of western North Carolina hard hit by Hurricane Helene, prompting disaster workers to relocate because of safety concerns and feeding a cycle of fear and anxiety.”

Numerous right-wing media figures, including those linked to Trump, have claimed that FEMA and its officials are guilty of “treason,” with some suggesting that they should be killed.

The Hodgetwins are a podcasting duo that promotes false claims and anti-trans vitriol. They have been by now-Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and have met Trump, who has promoted them online.

They wrote: “Whoever is running FEMA is guilty of treason Your time is coming when Trump wins.”

Charlie Kirk is a right-wing podcaster who frequently pushes toxic rhetoric and conspiracy theories. He is a key Trump ally who heads a group that’s been tasked with helping Trump’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

He ran a segment that he headlined “Hurricane Helene Aid Withheld? FEMA Whistleblowers Expose A Treasonous Misuse of Taxpayer Money” and said of the alleged misuse: “It is treason.”

SGT Report is a far-right show that promotes conspiracy theories, including QAnon. Trump administration officials Kash Patel, Peter Navarro, and Mike Flynn have appeared on the show.

The show ran an episode that included the description: “Chaos, death and destruction brought to you by the criminal and treasonous Biden-Harris administration. The official tally of the dead from hurricane Helene currently stands at 227 but thousands of Americans are missing and presumed dead and FEMA under Biden-Harris is doing LESS THAN NOTHING, in fact, FEMA is standing in the way of search and recovery. Brent Johnson believes these corrupt politicians should be tried and hanged from the neck until dead for their treason. LISTEN!”

During the program, the host began by claiming: “It is treason. In fact, friends, it's worse than treason. I want you to think about this. If you planned a war against the people over which you rule using their own money and resources, isn't this just exactly how you would do it?”

Brent Johnson, a fringe commentator and author, said: “My solution, though, is considered to be a bit too radical. I would haul them all out. I would have the militia come in, pick them up, OK? Whisk them away someplace, try them, convict them and execute them, hang them by the necks till they're dead and let their dead bodies rot while people see what is done to treasonous government thugs. But, hey, that's just me, you know? And people would say, ‘I'm being outrageous. I'm being, I'm being too radical. I'm being, you know, I want war.’ I don't want war. I'm actually one of the most peace loving people around. But these people are vicious and evil.” He later added: “I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”

Stew Peters is a Hitler-praising antisemite who has promoted numerous conspiracy theories and calls for violence. Numerous Trump-linked officials have appeared on his show, including Republican National Committee lawyer Christina Bobb; and Trump administration officials Kash Patel and Peter Navarro.

He wrote on social media: “Alejandro Mayorkas is a lying subversive parasite and should be tried for TREASON” followed by the rat emoji and the skull and crossbones emoji.

Wayne Allyn Root is a radio host and conspiracy theorist. He at a Trump rally and has Trump, who has in turn frequently promoted Root online.

Root said on his radio show on October 7 of Hurricane Helene: “But even if you don't believe that's what someone's purposely doing, even if this is just nature and it's just pure bad luck right before an election, hmm, strange. But even if you don't believe that — the response to Helene is the worst response in history, everyone involved should be tried for treason. Kamala, Mayorkas, they all should be tried for treason, what they've done to the people of North Carolina.”

Sean Davis is the CEO and co-founder of the right-wing publication The Federalist. He has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories, including claiming that “Democrats are preparing to use the military to steal the 2024 election and prevent their opponents from lawfully taking power.”

He wrote in response to a clip of Mayorkas discussing FEMA funding: “He should be in prison for the treason he has perpetrated against this country.”

Jane Ruby is a health misinformer who has pushed the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was the result of weather manipulation. She is scheduled to speak in North Carolina on the ReAwaken America tour with Trump’s “inner circle.”

She wrote on social media: “Time For States NC, TN, FL, GA To KICK OUT FED GOVT/FEMA The fed govt is shutting down roads, blocking civilian rescue missions, and confiscating donations This is more than overreach, it is an ACT OF TREASON.”

Glenn Beck is a right-wing radio host who became a household name for his conspiracy theories on his now-defunct Fox News program. He was recently part of a Trump campaign event.

His website recently wrote of a rant on his program:

Glenn was and still is disgusted by the flippancy of the organization that should be at the forefront of meeting the needs of Americans, whose taxpayer dollars fund the agency.

The second time he saw FEMA agents, they were building showers — not for displaced victims but rather for volunteers.

“FEMA is despicable,” says Glenn in disgust. “I don’t like calling people traitors, and I won’t today, but I will tell you — a case could be made that there are a lot of people that are bordering on the line of treason.”

The people running FEMA are included on that list.

https://www.alternet.org/cynical-political-ploy-gop-experts/}:

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the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is likely to begin in the US Senate this week. It is expected to be quickly tabled or dismissed by Democrats, who hold the majority and have criticized House Republicans for bringing the case to trial despite a lack of "high crimes and misdemeanors" the Constitution requires to necessitate impeachment.

Both Senate Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Mayorkas impeachment as a political stunt. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) said his Republican counterparts in the House of Representatives were engaging in the "worst, dumbest exercise and use of time" for an impeachment that was "obviously dead on arrival." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) dismissed it as "political theater from a Republican Party that can't do any real legislative work."

And as if to underscore that point, one journalist has exposed the staffers who authored the articles of impeachment as seasoned veterans of far-right, Christian nationalist groups.

In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), Jonathan Larsen — who most recently worked for The Young Turks and MSNBC — tweeted multiple pieces of evidence tying the staffers who steered impeachment efforts to several prominent Christian right groups he described as having a "theocratic" agenda. He noted that the leaders of these groups have "used lies to dispatch political foes," like Mayorkas.

Stephen Siao, who is the staff director of the GOP-controlled House Homeland Security Committee, is also the chief of staff for Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), who chairs the committee. Larsen found that Siao is the former grassroots director of Heritage Action (the political arm of the far-right Heritage Foundation, which is behind the controversial Project 2025 campaign). He has additional experience with Hillsdale College — led by board chairman Pat Sajak of Wheel of Fortune fame — which is one of the leading organizations behind the evangelical right's crusade against LGBTQ+ rights. Siao also began his DC career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has played an influential role in numerous Supreme Court decisions benefiting the religious right — like the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case in which corporations were given a "religious exemption" for denying employees' contraception care.

Siao is also a member of the Council for National Policy (CNP). As Larsen reported, CNP executive director Bob McEwen is a member of the secretive far-right organization The Family (also known as The Fellowship), which is the primary organizer of the annual National Prayer Breakfast. That organization was notably a prominent backer of Uganda's legislation to implement the death penalty for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

According to Larsen, both Siao and his own deputy recently attended educational sessions hosted by the Faith & Law Project. Larsen tweeted a description of the Faith & Law's 2022 conference, in which the organization sought to help "thought leaders and policymakers" apply a "Biblical worldview" to their "public square vocation." That conference was entitled "Christian Faithfulness in Public Service: Essential characteristics of a Christ-follower on Capitol Hill." Larsen also tweeted a statement from a female staffer on Green's committee, who wrote that she "frequently ask[s]" how her "personal faith should influence" her legislative work, and that the Faith & Law retreat would help her "answer that question."

The ideology of Christian nationalism asserts that the United States was founded as a Christian nation (many of the founding fathers were actually Deists) and that public policy should be crafted for the explicit promotion of Christianity. A 2023 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that more than half of Republicans polled said they wanted the US to be an explicitly Christian nation.

After he was officially elected as Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) invited anyone curious about his politics to "go pick up a Bible." He also said that the separation of church and state was a "misnomer" in a CNBC interview.

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Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) blasted his GOP colleagues for their unwavering devotion to Donald Trump while ignoring their critical national security oversight responsibilities, during the House Republicans’ Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.

“We have held zero – I repeat – zero full committee hearings dedicated to emergency preparedness, cyber threat, infrastructure protection, transportation security, Department of Homeland Security management or information sharing and intelligence efforts,” Congressman Menendez declared. “With the global dynamic that we have, we have not lived up to our oversight obligation here on this committee because you all are obsessed with the border, because you bend the knee to the ‘Orange Jesus,’ as you refer to him across the aisle.”

“That’s what this is about,” the freshman congressman shouted angrily. “And we have failed, failed, our jurisdiction on this committee, so I’m tired of being lectured. You know, I try to listen here. I try to be a team player. I really do. I try not to engage in the partisanship, but I’ve had it. I’ve listened to a lot of accusations here today. We are here on a sham impeachment hearing, because the partnership of this committee, and enough is enough. Ms. Green asked the American people, the American people are listening. They are and they’re tired of the partisanship of this Republican majority that has failed to get things done.”

The GOP-led hearing lasted past midnight, and resulted in an 18-15 party line vote to advance the highly-controversial articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. A full House vote is expected next week. If successful, Mayorkas would be the first presidential cabinet member to be impeached in nearly 140 years.

Watch below or at this link.

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last cab imp 150 yrs ago

'No high crime': GOP slammed for 'completely made up accusations' on Mayorkas impeachment - Alternet.org

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house Republicans, who will have a tiny two-vote margin in less than three weeks, are still on their winter break despite two impending budget crises that could lead to government shutdowns as soon as January 19. Speaker Mike Johnson allowed the House to go into recess on December 14, ignoring urging from the White House and the Senate for aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. Members are not expected to return until next week.

But dozens of House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, are headed to Texas Wednesday, betting their focus on the southern border will help them win the November elections. They’re kicking off the year by trying to do something Congress hasn’t done in almost 150 years: impeach a presidential cabinet secretary.

Republicans have been gunning for the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, since President Joe Biden nominated him three years ago. Born in Havana to Cuban Jewish parents, including a mother whose family fled the Holocaust, Mayorkas is the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first Cuban American to lead DHS. He was confirmed despite tremendous pushback by Senate Republicans in a 56-43 vote on February 2, 2021, after U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) took the rare step of putting a hold on his nomination.

Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) announced Tuesday the House will begin impeachment proceedings against Secretary Mayorkas next week, Punchbowl News was first to report, calling it “a major escalation in Green’s nearly year-long probe into Mayorkas.”

The last time Congress impeached a cabinet secretary was in 1876, when they impeached President Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William Worth Belknap. He was not convicted by the Senate.

“Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress, and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability,” Green told Punchbowl News in a statement. “The bipartisan House vote in November to refer articles of impeachment to my Committee only served to highlight the importance of our taking up the impeachment process – which is what we will begin doing next Wednesday.”

Punchbowl News reports “the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border has arguably been House Republicans’ biggest rallying cry heading into a critical election year. The issue is widely seen as a huge political problem for Democrats and Biden. The president’s poll numbers on this issue are terrible.”

The White House is pushing back against Republicans’ framing of the issue at the southern border.

“Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement, Politico reports. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”

“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” Bates added.

White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt on social media added, “President Biden has requested $13.6 billion for border enforcement & migration management, increasing the Border Patrol by 1,300, judge teams by 375 and asylum officers by 1600 to expedite the screening process, and critical drug detection technology.”

House Republicans will be at the border Wednesday, “calling for solutions” to the “border crisis,” as Texas CBS affiliate KENS5 reports.

They’re also pushing for the Senate to pass HR2, legislation American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick calls “hardline.”

“Mandates the indefinite detention of toddlers,” “Makes it a federal crime to violate a visa, even unknowingly,” “Empowers DHS to waive every single other law on the books to build, maintain, and operate border infrastructure,” and “Ends 99.9% of asylum,” he says.

Meanwhile, several far-right Republicans got an early start in Texas, meeting up with a Fox News reporter, telling him, “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.”

IFrame Content

Wednesday morning Secretary Mayorkas responded to news the House is moving to impeach him.

Watch his remarks below or at this link.

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retaltiation weaponization

mma 12 23

## Following House ethics report, Santos became the sixth member of Congress to be expelled from the chamber in history
- Congress voted on December 1 to expel Santos in a 311-114 vote over campaign finance violations, fraudulent schemes, and blatant lies outlined in a House Ethics Committee report. The first-term GOP representative, who announced he would not seek reelection following the report, is also facing a 23-count indictment from the Eastern District of New York and a Justice Department investigation into the allegations – which include using campaign funds to pay for Botox and OnlyFans, “a subscription-based website where people sell adult content." The Associated Press, [12/1/23; CBS, 11/16/23; CNN, 11/16/23]
## In the aftermath of Santos’ expulsion, right-wing media revived racist attacks on Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to call for their expulsion
- Right-wing media have a history of Islamophobic attacks on Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Their recent smear campaign against the two most high-profile Muslim representatives in Congress centers on the representatives’ statements of support for Palestinian civilians, many of whom have been killed in the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict, which right-wing media have conflated with support for Hamas. Pundits have called Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, a “terrorist sympathizer” and highlighted the House censuring her pro-Palestinian comments, and called Omar an “active threat to the U.S.” Media Matters, [10/13/23, 2/4/21, 7/10/19; The Associated Press, 11/8/23]
- Fox News host Mark Levin called on Congress to oust Tlaib, calling her a “threat to liberty, to humanity.” Levin reacted to the news of Santos’ expulsion on his radio show: “Tell me, which is a greater threat to the American people, which is a greater threat to liberty, to humanity – this guy Santos, who sounds like and looks like a schmuck, or Rashida Tlaib, the special player for Middle East terrorists?” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [12/1/23]
- The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis said “Ilhan Omar should be deported, Rashida Tlaib should be in Gitmo” while attacking the “utterly useless Republican party” for ousting Santos. Davis also said “Eric Swalwell should be in Leavenworth,” a military prison, and called House Republicans “a bunch of worthless clowns.” Twitter/X, [12/1/23]
- Fox News host and former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggested Congress should have expelled Tlaib for her comments supporting Palestinians. McEnany said, “Is it worse to be a liar or someone who sympathizes and perpetuates terrorist talking points, which is what Rashida Tlaib does? You’re going to do this to a liar, George Santos, why not Rashida Tlaib, who tweets out 'from the river to the sea,' and I would argue advocates for genocide.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [12/1/23]
- Fox News prime-time host Sean Hannity complained that Santos was expelled while Tlaib was only censured for her pro-Palestine comments. “I don't even know what to say about this issue involving George Santos. He hasn't been convicted," Hannity said on his radio show. “What I don’t understand about Republicans is if Congresswoman Tlaib called, you know, 'from the river to the sea,' the absolute wiping out of Israel, and only gets a censure, how is it a guy that’s not been convicted of anything. … The Republicans have to race out there and say nope, we’re going to kick him out when they only have a four seat majority?” Premiere Radio Networks, *The SeanHannity Show*, [12/1/23]
- Newsmax host Chris Plante called Tlaib and Omar “genocidal antisemites” and called for their expulsion from Congress, along with numerous other Democrats. Plante complained, “This is the problem with Republicans. I guess they're not in lockstep on anything. How about Adam Schiff, expel him maybe? For his pathological lying. Eric Swalwell, where to begin? Fang Fang maybe? Jamaal Bowman, you know, pulling the fire alarm to interrupt the vote? Rashida Talib, Ilhan Omar, genocidal antisemites.” Newsmax, *The Right Squad*, [12/1/23]

## Right-wing pundits targeted Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Eric Swalwell, and Adam Schiff for expulsion as well

- Right-wing media reignited their previous calls to investigate and expel Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and Adam Schiff (D-CA) over heavily dramatized scandals. Conservative media demanded Bowman’s resignation after he pulled a fire alarm in the House office building, which he said was a mistake, and they demanded that Swalwell resign after an Axios report revealed he was targeted by a Chinese intelligence operation. Right-wing media also called to remove Schiff for criticizing and investigating former President Donald Trump. Finally, conservative pundits promoted the fact that both Bowman and Schiff were censured by the Republican-led House. Media Matters, [10/26/23, 10/1/23, 12/11/20, 1/24/20, 1/27/20; Axios 12/8/20; The New York Times, 6/21/23, 12/7/23]
- Following an interview with Santos, Newsmax host Greg Kelly argued for the expulsion of Bowman for pulling a fire alarm and called him a “terrorist sympathizer.” He claimed Bowman “doesn’t know how to be a congressman, he just knows how to yell and scream and, yeah, pull the smoke alarm.” Kelly then criticized Bowman for criticizing Israel, stating, “He’s a terrorist sympathizer as well.” Newsmax, *Greg Kelly Reports*, [12/1/23]
- Libs of TikTok owner Chaya Raichik complained, “They won’t expel Swalwell, Schiff, Omar, Tlaib, Bowman for actual treason but they’ll expel Santos. This is why we lose. I’m so sick of cowardly and spineless Republicans!!!!” Raichik tweeted another attack from Libs of TikTok’s account, which listed out specific allegations against Swalwell, Schiff, and Bowman. Twitter/X, [12/1/23, 12/1/23]
- Fox contributor and former GOP House member Jason Chaffetz asked if an ethics report “is the standard” for expelling a member of Congress, questioning, “How come they’re not having this vote on Adam Schiff or Eric Swalwell?” Chaffetz claimed Schiff and Swalwell misrepresented classified information while serving on the House Intelligence Committee yet “nothing happened to them” and called on Congress to “have a same standard.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [12/1/23]
- Hannity questioned why Congress expelled Santos “but Congresswoman Tlaib stays or Bowman, who pulled the fire alarm, stays, or any of these other people stay?” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [11/29/23]
- Right-wing YouTuber Tim Pool also called for Bowman’s expulsion. Pool tweeted, “Wow crazy. Is Jamaal Bowman getting expelled next for those crimes he committed?” Twitter/X, [12/1/23]
- Newsmax host Eric Bolling bemoaned that despite “sleeping with a Chinese spy,” Swalwell “is still in his seat.” Newsmax, *Eric Bolling The Balance*, [12/1/23]

## Right-wing media renewed calls to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s border policies

- Conservative media personalities renewed calls to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of immigration at the southern border. The right-wing campaign to impeach the Homeland Security head centers around accusations that Mayorkas hasn’t been tough enough on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Conservative media have expressed anger that the vote to impeach Mayorkas was paused prior to the expulsion of Santos. Reuters, [11/14/23; Media Matters, 11/4/22, 9/27/23]

- Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy complained that Santos was expelled before Mayorkas was impeached. In an interview with Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Campos-Duffy stated, “It just seems like the lies from Mayorkas are hurting the country a lot more than the lies from George Santos,” after Gimenez assured her Congress “will bring findings of impeachment, articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [12/3/23]

- Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk attacked House Republicans for expelling Santos “because of Only Fans and Botox” instead of impeaching Mayorkas. After listing other targets he believed Republicans should have gone after, including Ilhan Omar, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bob Menendez, and Adam Schiff, Kirk concluded, “Everyone of these cowards who voted to expel Santos should get an immediate audit from the Ethics Committee into their personal lives. All voters want is a GOP that fights as hard as everyday citizens do.” Twitter/X, [12/1/23]

- Newsmax host Sharla McBride also griped that Republicans had expelled Santos before impeaching Mayorkas. McBride reacted to the vote, saying, “Some are noting they haven't tackled weaponization, impeached Mayorkas, but here we go, expelling Santos.” Newsmax, *Newsline*, [12/1/23]

an 11 23

the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is having difficulty focusing its efforts on who to impeach first — President Joe Biden or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Punchbowl News reported that the House Republican Conference's divisions have come to the surface, as members have accepted that they lack the political capital to conduct two high-profile impeachment hearings in the 118th Congress. While some members want to concentrate on impeaching Biden in relation to his son Hunter's foreign business dealings, other Republicans say targeting Mayorkas over border security is an easier target.

"[Republicans] need to focus on what they can get,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) told Punchbowl. "Mayorkas is easier than impeaching the president of the United States."

While the House Homeland Security Committee has accused Mayorkas of "dereliction of duty" in securing the Southern border, chairman Mark Green (R-Tennessee) didn't confirm whether his committee would ultimately recommend impeachment at the conclusion of its investigation.

"When my committee makes a recommendation, it’ll be substantiated by the evidence," Green said. "That’s the best I can say. I don’t want to create false hope or anything."

Meanwhile, the White House said House Republicans were "wasting time" on the impeachment resolutions and accused the majority of failing to responsibly govern.

"Secretary Mayorkas continues to be laser-focused on the safety and security of our nation,” DHS spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said. "This baseless attack is completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities."

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) recently stated during a press conference that the Biden impeachment effort is a major point of focus for his caucus, and said House Republicans would continue their work gathering evidence to impeach the 46th president of the United States. However, during a November meeting among the House GOP, members confided to Speaker Johnson that there might not be the political will to impeach Biden given his poll numbers. This prompted MSNBC columnist Ruth Ben-Ghiat to accuse Republicans of "abuse of power."

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an 8 23 no lnx GUK

'Cynical political ploy': Experts slam GOP’s 'unequivocally false' claim that Biden is behind opioid crisis

Maya Boddie August 08, 2023

Republican leaders' attempt to blame President Joe Biden's immigration policies for an increase in fentanyl deaths is a "cynical political ploy" according to critics, The Guardian reports.

Per The Guardian:

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, tied the sharp increase in fentanyl seizures and deaths to the record number of undocumented migrants entering the US last year, and blamed the White House for letting them in. So did Congresswoman Mary Miller when she claimed that Biden and the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, 'opened our borders and flooded our streets with fentanyl.'

Furthermore, according to the report, "Republicans held a congressional hearing in July into the Biden administration's 'open border policies' after the party's members on the homeland security committee released a report accusing Mayorkas of a 'dereliction of duty.'"

READ MORE: Lawmakers readying bipartisan bills to authorize Pentagon resources to combat fentanyl: report

However, Mayorkas deems the Republicans' claims "unequivocally false," according to The Guardian. "The vast, vast majority is thought to be smuggled through the ports of entry and tractor-trailer trucks and passenger vehicles."

The Guardian notes 2024 Republican candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also blamed the public health crisis on Biden,and previously "brought dozens of sheriffs from across the US together in Arizona in June to peer into Mexico and claim that the president's easing of [former President] Donald Trump's restrictions on migrants seeking asylum had opened the door to a flood of the drug killing about 200 Americans a day."

The news outlet reports "Ninety of" the sheriffs "signed a letter praising the Florida governor's position as Republicans increasingly link the growing toll from opioids to 'Biden's open border'"

Criticizing the GOP leaders' claims, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (R-Arizona) said DeSantis' border visit "was motivated by hate and fearmongering 'to pander to the same old race baiting anti-immigrant extremist politicians and officials in southern Arizona,'" according to The Guardian.

READ MORE: O’Rourke condemns Texas migrant traps: Biden 'must step in' because Abbott 'has blood on his hands'

University of Texas, El Paso Center for Law and Human Behavior Director Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., told NPR last year while "it's true that fentanyl is crossing the border," the drug is "not coming over on the backs of migrants, who are often turning themselves in to seek asylum."

READ MORE: Survey cites gun violence as America’s top health threat

The Guardian's full report is available at this link. NPR's report is here.

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impeach mayorkas 2/2

basically no change title 42? in court? biden admin expanded countries on it?

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/worse-than-watergate-how-the-right-uses-disinformation-to-generate-outrage-and-conspiracy-theories/

last week, the right-wing Media Research Center released a report featuring the provocative title, “How Biden’s DHS Is Weaponizing an Anti-Terror Program Against Christians, Conservatives & the GOP.” As the title suggested, the report claimed that the federal government is “being used to target the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians,” specifically groups like “The Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Christian Broadcasting Network, Turning Point USA, PragerU, the National Rifle Association (NRA), Breitbart News, the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Republican National Committee.”

The central claim of the report is false, but it has proved irresistible to the right-wing political and media machine that thrives on generating bogus narratives about the supposed political persecution of conservatives.

The report focused on a grant made by the Department of Homeland Security through its “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program,” which provides funding to local governments, nonprofit organizations, and institutions of higher education “to establish or enhance capabilities to prevent targeted violence and terrorism.”

One of the recipients of a TVTP grant was the University of Dayton, which MRC alleged then used the funding to launch a program known as “PREVENTS-OH,” through which it allegedly held a seminar linking mainstream conservative organizations to neo-Nazi groups.

The University of Dayton used grants from TVTP to create the infamous PREVENTS-OH program, which in turn hosted a series of events that maliciously equated mainstream organizations with neo-nazis and other extremist hate groups.

One of the first PREVENTS-OH events was a seminar called “Extremism, Rhetoric, and Democratic Precarity.” The seminar featured analysis from several so-called extremism experts who recklessly tied conservatives, Christians and Republicans to genocide and terrorism. Among the speakers were DHS Agent Joseph “J.R.” Masztalics a Regional Prevention Coordinator at CP3—who appeared in his official capacity at the event—and University of Cincinnati researcher Michael Loadenthal, a self-proclaimed member of a radical, anti-American group.

During the seminar, Loadenthal shared an outrageous ” that he claimed depicts the “modern far-right” and extremism in America.

Among the organizations and movements displayed on the pyramid were the Republican Party (RNC), The Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, Fox News, Breitbart News, the National Rifle Association (NRA), PragerUniversity, Tea Party Patriots, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Also on the pyramid, as if somehow comparable to the aforementioned reputable organizations and movements, were rabidly hateful groups like the militant neo-Nazi gang The Base and pro-Nazi publicationThe Daily Stormer.

Right-wing media outlets immediately seized upon the “outrageous” Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization to allege that the Biden administration is using the TVTP grant program to “target” conservatives.

MRC’s founder and president Brent Bozell appeared on TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s podcast last Friday to demand a “criminal investigation” into the grant....[vid]

There has to be, I think, a criminal investigation into what the Department of Homeland Security is doing with federal funds, weaponizing the most radical left-wing government in the history of this nation to shut down anybody who doesn’t toe the narrative with them,” Bozell declared. “That includes the Republican Party, that includes the conservative movement, and that now includes Christians.”

Kirk readily agreed that “this is a smoking gun” and declaring that the supposed scandal is “worse than Watergate.”

Unfortunately for Kirk, Bozell, and the rest of the right-wing movement, the central component of MRC’s report is wrong.

As the links contained in MRC’s own report make clear, the seminar at which the Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization was shown took place in December 2021. The University of Dayton did not receive the TVTP grant until September 2022.

The university then used the grant to launch its PREVENTS-OH program, meaning that MRC’s assertion that “the University of Dayton used grants from TVTP to create the infamous PREVENTS-OH program, which in turn hosted a series of events that maliciously equated mainstream organizations with neo-nazis and other extremist hate groups” could not possibly be true.

Even Fox News essentially debunked MRC’s allegations in an article that nevertheless blindly echoed those claims.

According to DHS, the University of Dayton was not a TVTP grantee at the time of the seminar and received a grant the following year — when the department was already aware of what was presented at the event. A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the award was unrelated to the seminar and rejected the notion that it supports any form of discrimination.

“This seminar was not funded, organized, or hosted by the Department of Homeland Security,” the spokesperson said. “Similarly, the presented chart was not developed, presented, or endorsed by the Department of Homeland Security,and was not part of any successful grant application to the Department of Homeland Security.DHS does not profile, target, or discriminate against any individual for exercising their constitutional rights protected by the First Amendment.”

The University of Dayton similarly described the seminar as being separate from the PREVENTS-OH program.

“The speakers at the programs referred to in the Media Research Center’s report are from the University of Dayton Human Rights Center’s Social Practice of Human Rights Conference in the fall of 2021, which had no affiliation with and predates PREVENTS-OH,” the university told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The University of Dayton Human Rights Center received its PREVENTS-OH grant in the fall of 2022 and, to date, its community awareness events and dialogues have focused on all forms of domestic terrorism, targeted violence, and extremism. As we stated when awarded the grant, ‘We look forward to partnering with Ohioans throughout the Miami Valley across all political and social affiliations and sectors of the community.'”

On top of that, the Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization image has been around since at least 2019, and clearly states that the institutions listed on the lower tiers are mainstream conservative organizations. In fact, the researcher who used the image, Michael Loadenthal, in his presentation, making clear that his focus was on the dangerous extremist groups “on the top tier."

[vid]

loadenthal likewise explained this to Fox News:

According to Loadenthal, the MRC is “misinterpreting and misrepresenting” the diagram as well as his role with it. He sent Fox News Digital a full copy of the image, which included text underneath the pyramid describing the bottom tier with the GOP, the NRA, and the Heritage Foundation as “mainstream conservatism.”

“The chart is meant to show that what is termed ‘the right’ is not monolithic and that some individuals travel to a path of radicalization, beginning with more mainstream sources,” said Loadenthal. “This point is not controversial nor is it deterministic; it is NOT meant to imply that engaging with level 1 inherently leads to level 4. That would obviously be false.”

When the pyramid was presented at the seminar, the text at the bottom was not visible. However, Loadenthal’s notes visible on the screen of the slideshow to the right of the image provide an abbreviated version of the text.

“So today we’re talking about the modern far-right, which depending on who you ask, can include things as mundane as the Heritage Foundation, all the way up to underground cells of militants,” the on-screen text reads. “I like the use of this 4-part taxonomy, although I disagree with some of the groups’ placements.”

Loadenthal also noted that he did not create the pyramid, telling Fox News Digital that he believes it was authored around 2018 — the upper left corner attributes the image to two scholars, McCauley and Moslalenko. “I found it a helpful conceptual scaffolding and used it,” he said.

Despite the fact that MRC’s report was basically debunked right out of the gate, that hasn’t stopped right-wing activists from using it to spin wild conspiracy theories, During Friday’s episode of her “WrongThink” program, right-wing commentator Anna Perez baselessly alleged that the Biden administration is using the TVTP grant program to “radicalize the youth and turn them into a paramilitary organization” that will attack conservatives. [vid]

"You know what this program is really for?” Perez said. “It’s so that the Biden administration can radicalize the youth and turn them into a paramilitary organization. … He is literally creating more members of antifa by implementing this program, that is why it exists. This program is literally meant to fund antifa.”

This entire saga provides a case study in how the right-wing movement works to generate “controversy” out of thin air, first by misrepresenting basic facts in order to generate outrage, and then using that outrage to gin up wild conspiracy theories. And the fact that the central component of this entire “controversy” is false will not, in any way, stop right-wing activists from continually repeating itin order to generate ever more outrage.

Tags: Anna Perez Brent Bozell Charlie Kirk Media Research Center

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abc local oddly no AN?

WASHINGTON (TND) — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has announced she intends to introduce articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden.

Greene said during her press conference on the matter on Thursday that Biden should be removed from his office due to his failure to secure the southern border and because he has "deliberately compromised our national security by refusing to enforce immigration laws and secure our border."

It is with the highest amount of solemnity that I announce my intention to introduce articles of impeachment today on the head of this America-at-last Executive Branch that has been working since January 20th, 2021, to systematically destroy this country: the President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden," Greene announced Thursday.

Greene added that Biden has allowed "approximately six million illegals from over 170 countries to invade our country," and that "his administration has willfully refused to maintain operational control as is required by law."

The impeachment articles against President Biden cap off what Greene calls "impeachment week," during which the congresswoman has also made moves to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,

FBI Director Christopher Wray

and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Greene has yet to release the text of her proposed impeachment articles against Biden, but did share on social media a photo of a piece of paper that reads "NEXT NO. H. RES. 420" in bold printed text with the number being handwritten. The words "Impeaching Joseph R. Biden" are scribbled in handwriting at the bottom of the paper.

The impeachment articles against President Biden come as his administration faces what The Washington Post called "one of his thorniest policy challenges yet" as Title 42, a pandemic-era immigration policy that restricted incoming migrants coming from countries where communicable diseases were present, came to an end on May 11.

Over 10,000 migrants were encountered along the southern border on May 9 alone, according to Homeland Security officials. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told The National Desk that community leaders have been told there will be "just too many people to even process."

President Biden has already said that "we’re doing all we can" in regard to the U.S. southern border, but added that "it’s going to be chaotic for a while."

More than 2.6 million people have been reportedly expelled from the U.S. under Title 42. Since Title 42 has ended, the impending migrant crisis that so many have warned of seemingly has yet to occur.

The National Desk reports that while the border is still backed up and the reported number of crossings remains high, other than a last-minute surge experienced near the end of Title 42, the situation has been "on par" with the numbers experienced over the last several months.

However, events at the border continue to make headlines and draw criticism. Less than 24 hours before Title 42 was set to end, an Afghan national who was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) terror watchlist was arrested at the U.S. southern border. On Wednesday, an 8-year-old child reportedly died while in Border Patrol custody.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities

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house Republicans have sent letters to at least three universities and a think tank requesting a broad range of documents related to what it says are the institutions' contributions to the Biden administration’s “censorship regime.”

The letters are the latest effort by a House subcommittee set up in January to investigate how the federal government, working with social media companies, has allegedly been “weaponized” to silence conservative and right-wing voices. So far, the committee’s investigations have amplified a variety of dubious, outright false and highly misleading Republican grievances with law enforcement, many of them espoused by former President Donald Trump. Committee members have cited supposed abuses that include the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, its investigations of Jan. 6 rioters and the Biden administration’s purported use of executive powers to shut down conservative viewpoints on social media.

now, universities and their researchers are coming under the spotlight of the committee, which the Republicans have labeled the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The letters, signed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee, were sent in early March.

They cover an investigation into how “certain third parties, including organizations like yours, may have played a role in this censorship regime by advising on so-called ‘misinformation,’” according to a copy of one of the letters obtained by ProPublica.

The committee requested documents and information dating back to January 2015 between any “employee, contractor, or agent of your organization” and the federal government or social media organizations pertaining to the moderation of social media content. ProPublica confirmed the requests went to Stanford University, the University of Washington, Clemson University and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The letters have prompted a wave of alarm among those in the field that the congressional inquiry itself, no matter what it finds, will lead universities to pull back on this research just as the 2024 election gets underway. “Recent efforts definitely have a chilling effect on the community of experts across academia, civil society and government built up to understand broader online harms like harassment, foreign influence and — yes — disinformation,” Graham Brookie, who leads studies in this area at the Atlantic Council, told ProPublica.

“The ‘weaponization’ committee is being weaponized against us,” another researcher told ProPublica. Like half a dozen others interviewed for this story, this person asked not to be identified because of the ongoing congressional probe.

Democrats have called the committee a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee, akin to the congressional committee that pursued alleged communists during the McCarthy era.

Since Rep. Jordan took over the gavel of the judiciary committee in January, he has issued more than 80 subpoenas and requests for documents. Recipients have included the CEOs of social media companies, intelligence officials who signed on to a statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign and members of the National School Boards Association who asked the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence against school board officials. Jordan himself refused a subpoena to testify before the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, prompting that committee to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee.

Jordan’s missives were sent a day after a committee hearing on the “Twitter files,” leaked internal communications from the company that purported to show how right-wing accounts were sidelined and silenced. In written testimony, a panelist accused a broad swath of organizations and individuals of being members of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” including, he implied, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, CIA, Department of Defense and universities. The witness wrote disinformation researchers, working with the government, are “creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on these blacklists.”

A New York Universitystudyconcluded in 2021 that social media had not silenced those on the right. “The claim of anti-conservative animus” by social media companies, the study said, “is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it."

A spokesperson for Rep. Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.

Since the 2016 elections, Stanford, UW, Clemson and others have engaged in research, sometimes in partnership with social media platforms, government officials and each other, into ways that disinformation can pose threats to democracy and how such efforts can be meaningfully countered. The role of lies and disinformation leading to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol gave increased prominence to their work.

As ProPublica has previously reported, sustained accusations by congressional Republicans and right-wing influencers that the Biden administration is stifling dissent have caused the administration to back away from its efforts countering disinformation, including canceling research contracts and sending messages inside the administration that disinformation work is too hot to handle.

Those moves followed a bungled rollout of a clumsily named “Disinformation Governance Board” to coordinate efforts to counter what the administration had called “dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence.” Following criticism, the administration disbanded the board and accepted the resignation of itsexecutive director, Nina Jankowicz.

Jordan has subpoenaed Jankowicz, too. She is scheduled to testify April 10 and said she will happily testify under oath.

“This sort of inquiry isn’t something that belongs in the United States Congress,” said Jankowicz. “But given that this method of bullying has caused other institutions to fold to Republican pressure in the past, I fear we may see the blunt force of congressional committees continue to be used in ways that are in direct opposition to the safety, security and free expression of the American people."

deSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”

Stanford did not answer a question about whether it stood by its research or make its researchers, the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Alex Stamos or Renee DiResta, available for comment. The university referred ProPublica to an online fact sheet addressing “inaccurate and misleading claims” made in the congressional testimony about Stanford’s “projects to analyze rumors and narratives on social media relating to U.S. elections and the coronavirus.” The German Marshall fund said it was working to address the request and Clemson University’s media relations department did not respond to requests for comment.

The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public issued a statement that said “We’re incredibly proud of our work,” adding that “some of the projects CIP researchers have contributed to have become the subject of false claims and criticism that mischaracterizes our work, a tactic that peer researchers in this space are also experiencing.” The statement did not specifically address the House requests.

A university spokesperson, Victor Balta, said in an email, “The UW stands behind this important research aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen our discourse. We have received a request for documents and information, and a response is in progress.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/dhs-disinformation-elections-biden-gop-midterms

On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden directed his national security team to make a plan to confront domestic terrorism. In their ensuing report, Biden’s advisers homed in on “a crisis of disinformation and misinformation.” The new administration, they pledged, would work to “counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence.”

But the reality of the administration’s efforts has been less robust than its rhetoric. Instead, a ProPublica review found, the Biden administration has backed away from a comprehensive effort to address disinformation after accusations from Republicans and right-wing influencers that the administration was trying to stifle dissent,

in May, one Department of Homeland Security office instructed staffers that work on “sensitive” topics including disinformation should be put on “immediate hold,” according to material reviewed by ProPublica. In the months that followed, DHS canceled a series of planned contracts that would have tracked and studied the proliferation of disinformation and its connection with violent attacks. And after issuing six nationwide warnings about domestic terrorism fueled by disinformation in the first 13 months of the Biden administration, DHS has only issued one in the eight months since.

The government’s retreat comes ahead of midterms in which election officials throughout the country are being inundated with false rumors about their work. After talks on a project to help election officials monitor and respond to threats stalled, election officials from Colorado and Florida wrote a private letter in August to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pleading for help.

“Threats and harassment of election officials has become an extremely serious concern and terribly frequent experience for election workers,” they warned, adding, “We are ourselves a crucial part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, in need of and deserving of protection.”

“Time is of the essence,” the officials wrote.

Weeks later, DHS scrapped the project.

DHS’ change of course began after a storm erupted in May in reaction to the administration’s creation of a Disinformation Governance Board. Congressional Republicans called it a “Ministry of Truth.” The board was terminated just months later.

Aspects of the administration’s retreat on disinformation have been reported, including a CNN story about the DHS’ rejection of a project to protect election workers from harassment. But the extent of the turnabout has not been fully examined.

“They paused all the work on disinformation, not just the board,” Nina Jankowicz, the former executive director of the DHS Disinformation Governance Board, told ProPublica. “The administration kowtowed to the disinformation rather than fighting it.”

It is not clear whether DHS’ initiatives would have made a significant difference in combating the tsunami of false rumors. But the current and former employees are frustrated that the agency’s efforts have been hobbled in response to political pressure.

DHS maintains it has not retreated on its disinformation efforts.“We have worked for over a decade to address disinformation that poses a threat to that security. This critical work continues today across several DHS components, consistent with the law and in a manner that is transparent and upholds the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of the American people,” a DHS spokesperson said.

The agency has stepped up some activity in recent weeks, increasing alerts and training for election workers. On Friday, DHS, along with the FBI, the Capitol Police and the National Counterterrorism Center, issued a bulletin warning that “election-related perceptions of fraud” will “likely” drive some extremists to attempt acts of violence.

But, despite the initiatives, election administrators remain deeply concerned.

“States need more support. It is clear that threats to election officials and workers are not dissipating and may only escalate around the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in an email to ProPublica. “Election offices need immediate meaningful support from federal partners.”

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The new administration moved quickly after Biden’s inauguration. Experts welcomed the increased pace of domestic terrorism warnings and their focus on false rumors that could be weaponized for violent ends. In September 2021, Mayorkas’ top aides suggested creating the disinformation board after identifying the problem as a “serious homeland security risk.”

In early 2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which is part of DHS, was in talks to deploy a federally funded nonprofit to protect election workers from harassment and violence.

The effort would have allowed elections officials to sign up for a service to protect them from having their identities and personal information exposed on the internet, known as doxxing. It also would have created a system to track and alert elections officials who were subject to serious threats on social media, including from foreign actors.

Around the same time, as lies about elections were becoming a central plank of GOP candidates, Republicans also began to attack the administration’s efforts. Some free-speech advocates also expressed concerns about government overreach.

An early Republican critic was Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. DHS had sent out an alert about “false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud.” Blackburn objected ina February letter to Mayorkas, writing, “The Department comes dangerously close to suggesting that publicly disagreeing with the current administration is akin to domestic terrorism.” Blackburn did not respond to a request for comment.

At that time, DHS was establishing the Disinformation Governance Board. It hired Jankowicz, an expert on disinformation, as its executive director. The board was tasked with coordinating all the efforts to confront the problem across the sprawling agency. The board’s charter was careful to note that the government needed to respect privacy and free speech.

Nevertheless, just hours after word leaked of its formation, right-wing media influencer Jack Posobiec issued a series of tweets slamming the board. Soon, Republican lawmakers like Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., were calling the board a “Ministry of Truth,” an apparent reference to a fictional government body that feeds people lies in George Orwell’s “1984.” Clyde did not respond to a request for comment. About 70% of Fox News’ one-hour segments over the next week contained a reference to the board, according to a report by Advance Democracy, a nonprofit media research group. The New York Post ran a cover with an image of Jankowicz and the headline: “Big Sister Is Watching You.” Jankowicz was subject to an outpouring of degrading comments and death threats.

A senior DHS official who spoke for the administration said to ProPublica that the board had become “a distraction that was making it harder for us to do the work we thought was essential.” In May, DHS “paused” the board and Jankowicz resigned, just 10 weeks after she had begun work.

That’s when the word went out to DHS staffers that work on “sensitive” topics like disinformation should be put on hold. DHS had been negotiating with a security firm called Moonshot, which specializes in monitoring online threats for governments and social media platforms. After the criticism of the board, discussions were halted and the contract was not signed. Eventually, DHS also froze millions of dollars for disinformation research contracts with two universities and the Rand Corporation, according to three people familiar with the matter. And a CISA “Rumor Control” webpage for election workers issued no updates from May to October.

DHS’ rollback in an election year alarmed former senior officials in homeland security. One of them, Bob Kolasky, a former top CISA official under Trump and Biden, warned in an opinion piece in a professional journal, “Many of our foreign allies, notably the Swedes and the French, have been much more aggressive in organizing to deal with the disinformation risk.” Without the board, “the country remains at risk.”

The pausing of the board and Jankowicz’s exit did not placate critics on the right. On the House floor, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., accused the Biden administration of trying “to target and silence citizens who disagree with government actions.” Biggs did not respond to a request for comment.

In August, with the disinformation board still leaderless and frozen, Mayorkas killed it for good. The agency also canceled the CISA project with the nonprofit that would have tracked online death threats to election workers and offered them enhanced protection of their personal information.

The DHS is not the only federal agency confronting the problem. The FBI, which is under the Department of Justice, also monitors such threats, but it is focused on gathering evidence of crimes. In 2021, the DOJ formed a task force to investigate threats to election workers, inviting them to submit tips to the FBI. So far, more than 1,000 have come in, and the DOJ has filed eight cases against people who allegedly threatened workers with violence.

But experts say prosecutors and the FBI alone cannot effectively deal with the problem. DHS’ mission — to gather and share information with partners in government and law enforcement before crimes occur — is critical to prevention.

Today inside the department “scrutiny is over the top on anything to do with terrorism, extremism, violence prevention — especially domestic terrorism,” a current DHS official said.

“The answer is not how do we do it better; in the face of criticism, it’s to shut it all down,” one former high-level DHS official told ProPublica. The officials were granted anonymity so that they didn’t suffer reprisals.

The bitter irony is not lost on experts in the field, who say that the attacks can have a chilling effect on outside researchers, too.

“The very thing we are studying is being used against us because the tactics work,” said University of Washington’s Kate Starbird, who advises DHS on disinformation and who herself has recently been subject to harassment based on rumors. “They undermine trust in institutions and in government and tie our hands when we try to protect ourselves.”

---

With DHS stymied, election officials report it’s up to them to keep abreast of the false information and respond. Julie Slomski, clerk of Erie County, Pennsylvania, said she now spends about half of her workday explaining how elections work to angry or suspicious constituents. She gives out her cellphone number and tells people to call or text with questions. “Here in Erie County, we’re an open book,” she said. But she’s taking precautions. Slomski now wears a bulletproof backpack her sister bought her.

In lieu of a robust official government effort, the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, which had once hoped for government resources and sponsorship, is briefing election workers on how to keep track of false information and respond effectively.

“I was surprised at the number of people who came up to me afterwards saying, no one had told us about any of this,” said John Cohen, a former top DHS official in the Biden administration and currently in leadership at the Center for Internet Security.

Some elections officials, however, question whether the federal government should be involved in this effort at all. Michael Adams, Kentucky’s Republican secretary of state, said the election denialism he encounters is so disconnected from facts that “sometimes I’m at a loss to even know how to reason with these people.” Adams has called out election conspiracies, but he believes his constituents are more likely to accept information about elections as trustworthy if it comes from local officials.

“I don’t think that the federal government, the so-called deep state, putting out information and saying ‘trust us’ is an effective strategy for persuasion,” he said.

But others say the federal government is doing too little, too late.

“We’re getting help, but much more is needed in certain areas,” Wesley Wilcox, supervisor of elections in Marion County, Florida, and one of the authors of the August letter to DHS pleading for help, said in a recent email to ProPublica. “I am NOT a proponent of a massive Federal Government intrusion. But, there are some very specialized areas that are a ‘best fit’ for the Federal Government.”

---

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Critics of Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, including some conservative Republicans, have long described the ultra-MAGA congressman as an example of style over substance. To Jordan’s detractors, he is a showman and a buffoon, not a serious lawmaker.

On the right, former House Speaker John Boehner detests Jordan and has described him as a “legislative terrorist.”And when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was putting together a bipartisan select committee on the January 6, 2021 insurrection, she made it clear that Jordan would not be a part of it. Pelosi welcomed the participation of two right-wing GOP conservatives — then-Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — but she believed that Jordan’s theatrics would make a mockery of the committee.

But Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, now House speaker, regards Jordan as an ally. And according to a report for The Hill by journalists Rebecca Beitsch and Emily Brooks, the congressman and staunch Donald Trump defender now enjoys greater prominence in the U.S. House of Representatives than ever before.

In an article published on February 2, Beitsch and Brooks explain, “Once a thorn in the side of House GOP leaders, Jordan has been elevated to be a top attack dog against Democrats. With the new power to not only direct congressional hearings but utilize subpoenas, Jordan will be both a standard-bearer for the GOP base and a sculptor of the Washington political landscape for the next two years.”

After serving in the Ohio State Legislature for over a decade, Jordan was first elected to the U.S. House in 2006. That year, Democrats enjoyed a major blue wave thanks to frustration with the George W. Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. But Jordan entered Congress via a highly gerrymandered district and has been reelected eight times; he is now serving his ninth term and has been a key member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

During the Boehner-era House, making Jordan chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would have been unthinkable. Now, in the McCarthy-era House, Jordan holds that position.

“It’s a role that will leave the fiery Jordan front and center in representing the GOP, this time imbued with subpoena power as he works to arm-wrestle Biden Administration agencies previously under little obligation to comply with minority oversight,” Beitsch and Brooks note.

Read The Hill’s full report at this link.

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mma 11 22

rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has committed himself to enacting an agenda supported by right-wing media through promises like investigating the FBI and impeaching President Joe Biden once the GOP is in charge of the House.

Now that Republicans have won back control of the House, Jordan — who is the current vice chairperson of the ultra right-wing Freedom Caucus and has influence in both Trump world and the current GOP leadership — is expected to take charge of the House Judiciary Committee in the next term. In the past couple of days, Jordan and his colleagues in the House have appeared on Fox to talk about their plans to investigate the supposed politicization of the Department of Justice and presidential son Hunter Biden’s business dealings. On Thursday morning, Jordan and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) even held a press conference to accuse Biden of being involved in his son’s business affairs.

These developments are not a surprise; over the past year, Jordan has provided many details of what his tenure would look like if the GOP won the midterms. In tandem with his right-wing media allies, who have pushed for similar actions, Jordan spoke of his intentions to pursue investigations into the origins of COVID-19 and former lead member of the COVID-19 task force Anthony Fauci; start impeachment proceedings against Biden, Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland; and go after the FBI for alleged misconduct against conservative activists. Jordan's actions and media statements also suggest he may increase oversight of the administration’s immigration policies.

COVID-19 investigation

Right-wing media have regularly amplified misinformation about COVID-19 and downplayed the severity of the pandemic, even as the death toll has continued to rise over the course of almost three years. Jordan has expressed interest in investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, especially pertaining to conspiracy theories perpetuated by right-wing media that Fauci knew more about its origins than he was letting the public know. In the right-wing media sphere, pundits have called for similar investigations, like Fox’s Jesse Watters suggesting an investigation into “how much money Fauci’s making in royalties from vaccines.”

While appearing on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futureson January 16, Jordan vowed to uncover what Fauci knew about the pandemic’s origins, saying he would “definitely” investigate Fauci and claiming the chief presidential medical adviser knew that the virus was created in a lab but led the public to believe otherwise.
When appearing on the January 20 episode of The Truth with Lisa Boothe, Jordan asserted that “what Fauci did is the template for how the left operates. Fauci said, ‘I’m going to get these individuals who get government money to write the story I want them to write, we’re then gonna cite that story as the basis for the message we want out there, and we’re going to mislead the American people.’”

Impeachments

Both right-wing media and Jordan have called for the impeachment of Mayorkas, Biden, and Garland. Right-wing media figures have been calling for Biden’s impeachment (since even before he took office) on a variety of issues, including his immigration policie:{s. Fox prime-time hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have given Republicans a platform to call for Mayorkas’ impeachment as well due to the situation at the southern border. Similarly, some right-wing media figures, including Ingraham and Hannity, have suggested that the GOP might want to impeach Garland for his supposed failure to protect Supreme Court justices and crisis pregnancy centers after the court’s draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked earlier this year. Jordan has also pushed similar narratives during his media appearances.}:

Jordan told The Washington Times on October 3 that Mayorkas “deserves” impeachment, and that “there’s not a rational person with an ounce of common sense who thinks the border is secure.” Jordan also stated that, when it comes to Mayorkas’ impeachment, it’ll be a decision the House judiciary “make[s] as a committee and one that we make as a conference.”
On March 25, Jordan said to The Washington Times that the Judiciary Committee would lead an impeachment trial for Biden but the decision to “try to remove” Biden from office would need to be agreed upon by every Republican member of the House of Representatives. Jordan cited what the Times summarized as “failures in office, most notably his administration’s inability to stop a massive influx of illegal immigration through the southern border” as probable impeachment charges.
Jordan told the Washington Free Beacon on July 11 that impeaching Garland would be “a decision that will be made by the entire conference,” citing Garland's supposed failure to protect clinics and judges and alleged collusion with left-wing groups opposed to parents protesting at school board meetings.

Politicization of the DOJ and the FBI

Right-wing media have promoted false claims that parents protesting so-called critical race theory in schools have been labeled “domestic terrorists” by the FBI. Within a few days in October 2021, Fox News aired over 60 segments discussing a DOJ announcement that it was looking into threats of violence and illegal behavior against school board members from protesters; some of the segments promoted the idea that these protesters were being “muzzled.” Jordan, along with other Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee, published a 1,050-page report in early November alleging FBI misconduct on issues including alleged inflation of domestic violent extremist statistics and investigations into parents who have protested at school board meetings. Jordan has also suggested that the committee intends to start an investigation of the FBI “right away” and he has sought documents from the education secretary as “the first step in our investigation into the Biden Administration’s role in the school boards spying scandal.”

On Fox News’ America’s Newsroom on November 4, Jordan attempted to justify the purpose of the whistleblower report, saying, “America is not America if you have a Justice Department that treats people differently under the law. It’s supposed to be equal treatment under the law. That’s not happening. And we know it’s not happening because 14 brave FBI agents came to us as whistleblowers and told us what exactly is going on here.”
On November 9, Jim Jordan made a guest appearance on the Breitbart News Daily podcast to discuss the report, saying, “FBI leadership, and specifically the Washington Field Office, is rotted to its core. So that means you’ve got to have a major overhaul, and the way you do that in Congress is you show exactly how bad it was — that’s our job — and then, you hopefully, by showing it, that pushes them back and gets them to throttle back on all the crazy things they’re doing.”
On the November 1 edition of Kudlow, Jordan told host Larry Kudlow that Americans “have to have a Justice Department that treats every American the same, equal treatment under the law.” He said that’s “not what we saw” with a pro-life activist in Philadelphia who was arrested by the FBI and with attacks on churches and pro-life centers. Jordan said that the House Judiciary Committee will “hold them [the FBI and Justice Department] accountable” to “stop a Justice Department that’s been focused on politics.”

Increased oversight of the administration's immigration policy

Right-wing media continue to catastrophize actions at the U.S. southern border, which Jordan has claimed is seeing an “unprecedented surge of illegal activity,” and has blamed Biden’s immigration policies for leading to “chaos on the border.” Right-wing media have compared immigration to invasions, pushed racist “great replacement” conspiracy theories against migrants, and frequently attacked the Biden administration for resettling migrant children. Currently, Jordan is pushing for increased oversight of the DOJ due to a perceived lack of leadership when it comes to immigration from the Biden administration.

On September 20, Jordan lambasted the Biden administration for “ignoring” issues around immigration and refusing to embrace Trump-era immigration policies at the southern border. During his appearance on America Reports, Jordan said that a “full implementation” of Title 42 (meaning “building the wall” and returning to the Remain in Mexico policy) would solve the southern border crisis, but “the White House won’t embrace it because the hard left won’t let them.”
During his September 12 appearance on Fox Across America, Jordan slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for calling the southern border secure, saying, “Here are millions of people coming across, as we’ve said before, it has to be intentional. It has to be deliberate and premeditated because it can't be that. … That’s a serious concern that I know, as I travel around, lots of Americans have.”
Jordan and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote a letter to the Department of Justice demanding answers as to why the Biden administration decided to “terminate the employment of multiple immigration judges who were hired during the Trump administration.”

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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/16/democratic-strategists-launch-war-room-00065498

group of top Democratic strategists are launching a multi-million-dollar hub to counter an expected investigative onslaught by the likely incoming House GOP majority — digging into President Joe Biden, his administration and his son, on top of potential Cabinet impeachments.

The newly relaunchedCongressional Integrity Project initiative, details of which were shared first with POLITICO, will include rapid response teams, investigative researchers, pollsters and eventually a paid media campaign to put congressional Republicans “squarely on the defense,” founder Kyle Herrig said in an interview.

It’s designed to serve as the party’s “leading war room” to push back on House Republican investigations, Herrig said in an interview. He added that the project would “investigate the investigators, expose their political motivations and the monied special interests supporting their work, and hold them accountable for ignoring the urgent priorities of all Americans in order to smear Joe Biden and do the political bidding of Trump and MAGA Republicans." [vid]

a team of researchers has already begun scouring public records, press clippings and other documents in a bid to immediately undercut House GOP leaders, from Minority Leader — now speakership hopeful — Kevin McCarthy to the likely committee chairs expected to manage probes of Biden and his network.

The House GOP views investigations as a key piece of its agenda for the next Congress once it takes the narrow majority that’s now expected, particularly as much of its legislative wish list is on track to stall thanks to the Senate filibuster and Democratic president. McCarthy has privately talked with committee chairs-in-waiting to coordinate plans, making the swift launch of the outside-group pushback plan a potential godsend to Democrats.

Democratic leadership on the Hill has been briefed about the project’s relaunch, according to a person familiar with its plans.

Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist who is part of the project’s new leadership team, called the House GOP’s looming investigations a “vendetta” after two impeachments of and investigations into former President Donald Trump while Democrats controlled Congress, including the bipartisan select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The project “will exploit every tactic available,” Woodhouse said, adding: “It’s not enough to wait and see what they’re going to do and how far they’re going to go.”

Republicans wouldn’t formally take the House until January, but its leaders are already vowing to cut a broad investigative swath. As McCarthy put it during his conference’s recent agenda rollout: “Every committee has responsibilities for oversight.”

“They’ve virtually outlined no substantive agenda for governing,” Herrig said of House Republicans. “This is what they’re going to do ... so you really need a concentrated effort that’s doing this every day.”

In addition to Herrig and Woodhouse, the project’s leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades, served in the Obama administration and advised the Biden administration’s pandemic response.

In a sign of the important role the initiative will play over the next two years — and its proximity to the White House — other senior advisers include Jeff Peck, a former Biden aide during the president’s time in the Senate who served as treasurer and vice chair of the Biden Foundation as well as a senior adviser to the Biden-Harris transition.

The Congressional Integrity Project leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades. | Brian Stukes/Getty Images for Protect Our Care

For the final two years of Biden’s term, Republicans will be aided in their oversight push by a coalition of outside conservative research groups that have already mapped out potential targets and started digging into issues ranging from Hunter Biden’s business dealings to immigration policy.

And GOP lawmakers have left their own investigative breadcrumbs that make it clear where they intend to go. Likely Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) will lead the Hunter Biden investigation, with Republicans already preparing to elevate the probe to Joe Biden although no evidence has publicly emerged that his decisions were affected by his son’s business dealings. Comer recently told POLITICO that he and likely Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would provide a public update this week.

Jordan, meanwhile, is preparing to use the gavel he’s poised to take for conduct a sweeping investigation into the Justice Department and FBI, two frequent targets of Trump’s ire. That probe is likely to touch on everything from the search at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents to tracking threats against local school officials, which the GOP slams as an effort to target parents despite denials from the bureau. [vid]

other GOP areas of interest include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ukraine aid and a coronavirus probe that is likely to sweep up longtime public health adviser Anthony Fauci.

McCarthy and his allies are under pressure from their base and some members of their own conference to pair their investigations with impeachment articles; some in the party are clearly itching for payback after then-President Trump was impeached twice. Though impeaching Biden is likely a heavy lift — and a step that McCarthy isn’t endorsing for now — Republicans see Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as a more likely target for attempted removal from office.

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congressional Democrats and others close to the administration view Republicans’ vows to investigate Mayorkas’ department and the border as the latest sign that they aren’t serious about trying to pass immigration legislation. And they slam Republican investigative plans writ large as thinly veiled attempts to help Trump, pointing to Jordan’s public remarks earlier this year that characterized GOP probes as helping “frame up the 2024 race.”

The Congressional Integrity Project is also aiming to raise funds for a paid media campaign, including dedicated websites, digital ads, mobile billboards, newspaper ads and, occasionally, TV ad buys. Its public opinion research will be shared with like-minded organizations and congressional allies to contrast GOP investigations with issues the American public cares most about, project leaders said.

Their goal is to prevent a repeat of the 2016 presidential campaign when Republicans also controlled the House and created a select committee to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. That GOP select panel ended up zeroing in on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepared to ascend to the Democratic nomination, culminating in an 11-hour grilling of Clinton.

Republicans’ two-year Benghazi investigation spent $7 million in taxpayer money and dogged Clinton on the campaign trail before finally producing an 800-page report that didn’t focus on the former secretary of state.

Then-Majority Leader McCarthy quipped in 2015 to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the Benghazi committee had successfully driven down Clinton’s poll numbers. “He took a lot of crap for it, but in the end, it was true” that the investigation hurt Clinton politically, recalled Woodhouse.

Rather, Democrats hope the flood of investigations will lead to a repeat of the 1998 midterm elections, held amid the GOP push to impeach then-President Bill Clinton. Voter backlash against that move helped Democrats defy historical trends in House races that favor the party that doesn’t occupy the White House gaining seats.

POLITICO

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