The Trump administration is investigating an agency of the censorship arm of the Department of Homeland Security following an MRC report outing the agency for its anti-free speech activities.
In an exclusive study on 57 Biden Censorship Initiatives, MRC Free Speech America provided evidence that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) flagged social media posts both before and after the 2020 election for tech companies to censor. MRC also detailed the work of Miles Taylor, former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who coordinated censorship, funded anti-free speech initiatives in the classroom and in labeled right-leaning media “neo-Nazis.” Now the Trump White House is investigating CISA and Taylor.
In an April 9 memo, Trump declared, “The Federal Government has a constitutional duty and a moral responsibility to respect and promote the free speech rights of Americans. Yet in recent years, elitist leaders in Government have unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate. ”
Trump also accused Christopher Krebs, the former CISA head, of being a “bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority” while violating the First Amendment. The president highlighted that under Krebs’ leadership CISA:
- “suppressed conservative viewpoints under the guise of combatting supposed disinformation, and recruited and coerced major social media platforms to further its partisan mission.”
- “covertly worked to blind the American public to the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
- “promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices.”
- “ falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
- “skewed the bona fide debate about COVID-19 by attempting to discredit widely shared views that ran contrary to CISA’s favored perspective.”
Trump then ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to investigate Krebs.
This comes after MRC revealed Krebs was involved in the development of two video games indoctrinating people into the notion that disinformation must be suppressed. Multiple agencies, including CISA, partnered with the UK government and a Dutch media collective to produce Harmony Square, which was pushed into schools across the globe, from the United States to Ukraine.
MRC also detailed CISA’s “switchboarding,” or election season flagging of free speech posts for Meta, Twitter and other Big Tech platforms to censor.
Trump issued another memo ordering a review of Taylor’s actions while working for the federal government. In light of evidence that Taylor used his position to push false narratives, undermine the president, and manipulate information, Trump suspended the security clearances for Taylor and his associates, including “the University of Pennsylvania.”
“Where a Government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness –- all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in Government — this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act,” Trump declared.
Notably, as reported by the MRC, Taylor convinced then-Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan to resurrect a “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention” grant program and use it to push censorship and target the left’s political opponents.
Under Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, TVTP grants financed the PREVENTS-OH initiative to label right-leaning media and Republicans as “neo-Nazis” at the University of Dayton. TVTP money was also used for the Courageous RI classroom censorship initiative.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide an equal platform for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
