‘The Future of Our Republic Is at Stake’

The Biden Administration’s recent announcement that it was establishing a “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB) through the Department of Homeland Security has set off a bit of a firestorm. On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified to a House committee that the board was being created, at least in part, to combat “disinformation” ahead of the mid-terms.

Immediately (and rightly), questions were raised as to the purpose and scope of this new “board” — and Nina Jankowicz, who’s been tapped to head it.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt directed a letter to Secretary Mayorkas on Friday, detailing concerns regarding the board’s creation and the potential for infringement on the First Amendment. Schmitt sent the following tweet:

If the Biden Administration continues to trample on our free speech rights under the false banner of “disinformation,” on behalf of the citizens of the State of Missouri, I will fight this government overreach every single step of the way. Our Republic’s future is in jeopardy. pic.twitter.com/W5fNFaXoIj

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) April 29, 2022

Schmitt has already proven he’s willing and able to take on the Biden Administration. He’s mounted successful challenges to the administration’s suspension of the Remain in Mexico policy, the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, and the proposed lifting of Title 42 immigration restrictions.

Schmitt currently runs for the U.S. Senate in order to succeed Roy Blunt who is retiring. If he succeeds in that bid, he’ll join Missouri’s other sitting senator, Josh Hawley, who also directed a letter to Mayorkas on Thursday, noting:

“I confess, I at first thought this announcement was satire. Surely, no American administration would ever use the power of government to sit in judgment on the First Amendment speech of its own citizens,” Hawley wrote. “Sadly, I was mistaken. Rather than protecting our border or the American homeland, you have chosen to make policing Americans’ speech your priority. This new board is most certainly unconstitutional and should be dissolved immediately.”

Schmitt also raises some critical issues in his letter.

This statement ought to shock at the core American belief system. A threat to freedom of speech will be alarming liberty-loving citizens across America including my own state, Missouri. This is because we know instinctively that shadowy government programs that promise protection from the “bogeyman” are in reality, clumsy attempts by deep-staters to slowly steal our liberties and invade our privacy step by step, while hoping we don’t notice. We’re noticing.

Surprisingly, the Biden Administration believes it can tell its citizens truth from lies and give them advice on what they should believe. In what might well have been written as a response to DHS‘s Orwellian announcement, the United States Supreme Court has clearly spoken on this subject, proclaiming that, “Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceania‘s Ministry of Truth.” United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 723 (2012) (per curiam) (citing G. Orwell, Ninteen Eighty-Four (1949) (Centennial ed. 2003)).

Here in the “Show Me” State of Missouri, we have a reputation for being suspicious of big-government bureaucrats offering to “help” – especially when they ask us to give up a bit of our “essential liberty” in exchange for their “paid protection.” There are very good reasons for our skepticism, not the least of which is that yesterday‘s “misinformation” often becomes tomorrow’s established fact. It isn’t hard to find examples of this right in front of our noses.

Attorney General Schmitt then identifies several notable — and recent — examples of this phenomenon, including the lab-leak theory regarding COVID-19 and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story immediately prior to the 2020 election.

Schmitt further expounds:

In fact, the Biden administration frequently applies terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation,” not based on actual truth or falsity, but based on their preferred political narrative. This is resulted, again and again, in the suppression of truth and has given the American people good reason to look askance at the government‘s efforts to control what we hear and read, the personal conclusions we come to about what is true and false and what we believe. It is extremely frightening and dangerous. Thinking people are us. We needn’t have Big Government’s “help” in deciding what we think is true.

There is already a clear way to address false and misleading speech while we’re respecting the rights of each and every citizen. It is called “more speech,” and it is enshrined in the First Amendment, the beating heart of our Constitution. “Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse. These ends are not well-served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.” Alvarez?, 567 U.S.A. at 728

Schmitt puts it well, when he states:

People of this nation are free and can believe in, practice, and support self-government. We are proud of our flag and respect the rule. We understand that all our rights, including freedom of speech, are God-given and not handed by monarchs or Disinformation Governance Boards. So if you continue to try and trample on our free speech rights under the false banner of “disinformation,” on behalf of the citizens of the State of Missouri, I will fight this government overreach every single step of the way. Our Republic’s future is in jeopardy.

“The future of our Republic is at stake.” That isn’t idle rhetoric. Our freedom and autonomy are based on the principles set forth in our First Amendment. It is unacceptable for us to accept a government which dismisses these principles as outdated or quaint.