Former Executive Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board Nina Jankowicz (whew!) appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, seemingly thinking that appearing on TV with Brian Stelter would improve her credibility. Stelter has spent a large part of his adult life hawking the debunked Russia collusion conspiracy, so I’m not sure why she thought this would be a good idea.
The DHS announced the creepy-sounding Board in April, but hit the pause button three weeks later after receiving intense backlash and widespread (deserved) scorn. Jankowicz resigned soon after. Now she tells her version of what happened, and she claims there was a “disproportionate focus” on her in the media.
It [the Board] absolutely was the victim of disinformation. (Insert guffaws here.) So all of these narratives, that the Disinformation Governance Board was going to be this Orwellian Ministry of Truth and all of the harassment and disinformation that was directed against me, was based on that falsehood.
First things first: if you’re going to name something the “Disinformation Governance Board,” prepare for immediate Orwell comparisons. His classic book “1984” was the first thing that popped into my head when I was reporting on the original story, and I put it straight into my headline: “In Another Orwellian Move, Biden DHS to Create a ‘Disinformation Governance Board.” Just about every other headline writer in the nation managed to get Orwell into their headlines too.
It is true, though, that she became the focus of much of the coverage surrounding the new board, and she was subjected to a boatload of criticism and mockery. Much of it she brought on herself though—she was previously a known spreader of disinformation herself, touting the same Russia conspiracy theory that Stelter loves so much. Also, many of her past social media posts and comments are clearly partisan, and she always seems to side with the Left.
Nina Jankowicz was on Stelter’s CNN show & he didn’t bring up one single example of her pushing falsehoods. Nina trashed the motivations of her critics & claimed that “I did not post disinformation” & denied spreading disinfo in tweets on 2016 & related to Hunter Biden’s laptop. pic.twitter.com/W4YCHy0QQc
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) July 10, 2022
Stelter asked why the DHS didn’t do a better job of explaining what it was doing with the new board. As if a better explanation would somehow make the Board a good idea, when in fact it was a terrible, anti-free speech notion from the start. Jankowicz replied:
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I have a lot of misgivings about the way things went down and I think the first thing to point out, Brian, is that there was a disproportionate focus on me, given my level of power within the department. I was not allowed to speak on my own behalf, and frankly all the communications decisions that were being made about how to talk about the board were made above my pay grade, and above my level, level of decision-making.
I was the executive director, but there were a lot of people that were involved that didn’t take advice, frankly, that I had given them. And I had hoped that things would go down differently.
Jankowicz said she based her decision to resign on her feeling that “the government had just rolled over, to the critics, who had completely spun this narrative out of control based on absolutely nothing in reality.”
In other words, the DHS put up someone who wasn’t qualified, had plenty of baggage in her Twitter feed—including disinformation—and then left her hanging out to dry when things didn’t go as planned. I’d almost feel sorry for her, if she hadn’t brought so much of it on herself.
Jankowicz might not go quietly into the night, however. On Wednesday, she called out a Democrat—none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—for spreading disinformation in a fundraising email.
While it’s not the most outrageous falsely-attributed statement I’ve seen in a ‘22 fundraising email, this blatant misrepresentation of @fivethirtyeight‘s work is unacceptable. Dems should drop this disinfo (as I would wager it was deliberate) & focus fundraising on real issues. https://t.co/zB6EhafttW
— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) July 5, 2022
Maybe Nina will go on a revenge tour and start calling out Dems everywhere. She should start with the truth-challenged Brian Stelter. That would be a fitting end to this whole ludicrous “Disinformation Board” debacle.
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