Media call for Ministry of Truth
Media operatives on Saturday appeared to call for a government ministry of truth to save the public from “disinformation.”
The remarks were made on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” which on Saturday featured Nina Jankowicz as a guest. Jankowicz was tapped in 2022 by the Biden-Harris administration to lead the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), a body that was slated to work with the Department of Homeland Security to stamp out “disinformation.”
Jankowicz, who has said she “shudders” at the thought of free speech, has been a frequent source of disinformation. She vehemently claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was a “Trump campaign product” and in 2016 peddled the false conspiracy theory that Donald Trump conspired with the Kremlin to steal the presidential election.
The DGB was scrapped after backlash. Last year, leaked documents revealed that the board was meant to silence opponents of the Biden-Harris administration, including those who question the 2020 election results.
On MSNBC Saturday, Jankowicz signaled she is still bitter about the DGB’s cancelation. She spent the segment fuming against Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for spreading "disinformation," particularly by how they called out the disastrous response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to Hurricane Helene.
“[FEMA agents] are first responders meant to be dealing with emergency assistance,” she said. “They have had to become disinformation experts and there was meant to be a bureau within DHS focusing on this that I was meant to lead.”
“This is why Nina should be employed today in the federal government,” responded host Symone Sanders-Townsend.
“I would be happy to work for her,” chimed in David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones.
An actual ministry of truth
Although the DGB was nixed, the American public is largely unaware that an agency functioning as a ministry of truth already exists within the federal government.
Director of National Intelligence (DCI) Avril Haines first mentioned the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) on May 4, 2023 during her testimony before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. This was the first time the FMIC was publicly mentioned since it was created in 2019, reportedly due to “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
The intelligence chief noted that the FMIC does not only deal with foreign-influenced election disinformation, but all disinformation.
“Congress put into law that we should establish a Foreign Malign Influence Center in the intelligence community; we have stood that up,” Haines told the committee. “It encompasses our election threat work, essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, but it also deals with disinformation more generally.”
Haines was referring to a provision of the law that charges the FMIC with countering foreign influence on “public opinion.”
However, not only is the office responsible for truth in public opinion, it is also meant to “serve as the primary organization in the United States Government for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States Government pertaining to foreign malign influence.”
This means the FMIC oversees other offices which are also “countering disinformation” such as the Global Engagement Center (GEC). The GEC is an office within the State Department whose mission is described as “countering foreign disinformation by amplifying America’s own propaganda.”
Some of the GEC’s work involves working with groups funded by billionaire George Soros and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to track “disinformation spreaders” on social media. These users include those who question the safety or efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Other agencies have their own “disinformation” offices. In 2017, the FBI created the Foreign Influence Task Force. The next year, the Department of Homeland Security established the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force.
