- The Washington Times - Thursday, May 19, 2022

The former head of the Biden administration’s planned disinformation board blamed its demise on … disinformation.

In a CNN interview Thursday, Nina Jankowicz decried the Homeland Security Department’s decision to pause its disinformation governance board, saying it had been victimized by politics.

“Unfortunately and ironically we were undone exactly by a disinformation campaign coming from folks who apparently want to put our national security behind their own personal political ambitions,” she said in a clip posted by the Media Research Center.

The board was widely derided as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” and Ms. Jankowicz herself became a lightning rod over her previous work in the field, which critics said demonstrated “disinformation” was a partisan tool to her.

To the latter end, conservatives cited her history of controversial remarks about free speech and a penchant for sharing misinformation, including about the now-discredited Steele dossier about Donald Trump and about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.

Ms. Jankowicz, who resigned as director of the commission regardless of DHS’s stated pause, has insisted she is not a partisan and has been widely described in liberal outlets as a “disinformation expert.”

Even with Ms. Jankowicz gone, the board isn’t exactly dead.

Homeland Security assigned two former senior government officials to lead a review of the department’s work on disinformation and issue a report in 75 days.

“The board will not convene and its work will be paused” until then, DHS said.

Senate Republicans also pledged Thursday to defund the board, further casting doubt on its future.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.

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