Judiciary Committee Chair of the House, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, unveiled on Monday that a coalition involving federal entities, academic ‘disinformation’ specialists, and major technology firms engaged in concerted efforts under the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to surveil and suppress the expression of American citizens during the electoral proceedings of 2020.
According to a preliminary report issued by the House Judiciary Committee along with its Select Subcommittee on Government Overreach, both under Jordan’s leadership, there was a systematic push by this coalition. The report, which surfaced on Monday, accused the collaboration of exerting influence on social media platforms to silence not just accurate statements and humor but also diverse political viewpoints.
“The orchestrated pressure predominantly favored a particular political faction, categorizing veritable statements from Republicans and right-leaning individuals as ‘misinformation’, while simultaneously ignoring and not addressing inaccuracies circulated by Democrats and left-leaning individuals,” the report elucidates.
The interim findings, encapsulated in a document titled “The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’: How Federal Institutions Allied with Academia to Inhibit American Free Speech,” highlight how Newsmax, among others, became a focal point of these censorship endeavors.
Detailing the intricacies of the operations, the report casts light on how the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), collaborated with Stanford University among other bodies to form the EIP. This initiative, conceived in the summer of 2020, was reportedly a strategic avenue for federal agencies to cloak their censorship endeavors, aiming to circumvent First Amendment protections and evade public examination.
According to the executive summary, the EIP disproportionately targeted conservative voices, casting a wide net over political discourse.
The committee’s investigations unearthed that the EIP, in association with Stanford, prodded social platforms like Facebook and Twitter (now known by another moniker) to discredit news from conservative outlets as ‘misinformation’.
Not only was Newsmax a subject of this suppression, but so were key political figures such as former President Donald Trump, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, along with former Speaker Newt Gingrich, ex-Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and a roster of conservative voices including Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Michelle Malkin, and Mollie Hemingway, in addition to countless other Americans across the political spectrum.
Further disclosures came to light when one of the EIP’s originating partners, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, referenced CISA’s pivotal role in these silencing campaigns in an email dated July 31, 2020, which Rep. Jordan shared on a social platform.
Through a methodology termed “switchboarding,” EIP facilitated the communication of removal requests from state and local authorities to social media entities, a process verified by CISA-CFITF Director Brian Scully in courtroom testimony as part of the case Missouri v. Biden. Here, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged federal collusion with big social media firms to curtail free speech.
An incriminating email exchange highlighted by the report shows Scully informing the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office about Twitter’s approach to parody account flags, revealing direct engagement with social media giants on specific content issues.
This pattern of behavior is reflective of broader governmental efforts to finance media watchdogs like NewsGuard and the GDI, which evaluate and rate various news platforms and broadcasters.
Both NewsGuard and GDI have benefitted from substantial grants provided by the State Department and the Pentagon. Under the stewardship of Steven Brill, a prominent Democratic supporter and donor, NewsGuard has operated. The Media Research Center has criticized NewsGuard for allegedly assigning lower ratings to conservative outlets while favoring liberal ones, which consequently influences major advertising agencies to exclude conservative media from ad revenues based on these ratings.
