Did the shady federal efforts to frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset lead to mass censorship, with the aid of George Soros? A newly declassified email suggests so.
As the Trump administration declassifies more documents surrounding the Russia collusion hoax manufactured by government officials starting in the 2016 election cycle, there seems to be a disturbing connection with the aggressive federal censorship efforts of recent years. This came just before MRC exposed Google for undermining via its news tab Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s exposé on how former President Barack Obama helped fabricate the Russia hoax.
Mike Benz, the director of the Foundation for Freedom Online Executive, identified a document that seems to illustrate the “Russia collusion hoax” provided pretext for federal officials to claim “critical infrastructure” was under threat and censorship was needed, which was later weaponized with the aid of Big Tech companies to crush free speech online.
The declassified documents show the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) discussing how they could smear Trump while distracting from Democrat 2016 nominee Clinton’s “growing” corruption scandal.
Benz shared a screenshot on July 31, apparently of a previously classified message from Leonard Benardo, who was the regional Eurasia director for OSF (and now senior VP), written in July 2016. And the ominous message indicates the formation of a whole infrastructure to manipulate information.
In his message, Benardo wrote, “HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level. The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue. Say something like a critical infrastructure threat for the election to feel menace since both POTUS and VPOTUS have acknowledged the fact IC would speed up searching for evidence.”
Benz excitedly accused that this “IS WHERE THEY COOKED UP THE ‘CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE’ HOAX THAT CREATED THE LEGAL PREDICATE COVER FOR THE ENTIRE CENSORSHIP INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.”
Notably, the MRC just found that Google’s news tab actively protected Obama after DNI Gabbard revealed how his White House worked to override early assessments undermining the Trump-Russian narrative in 2016. Instead, Google boosted articles that, among other ploys, accused Gabbard of “lying,” of pushing a “MAGA” conspiracy, and of attempting to “rewrite” history. Thus the Big Tech-government alliance to manipulate the Russia hoax is apparently ongoing. And as Benz noted, the collusion hoax was not only manufactured, it was used to justify censorship.
For example, in March 2024, U.S. intelligence agencies under the Biden administration were stepping up censorship efforts supposedly to protect “infrastructure” ahead of the 2024 election. In October 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrated an appellate court issuing an injunction against Biden administration censorship, noting that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s then-head Jen Easterly had expressed a goal to control “neurological infrastructure” through suppressing free speech.
In August 2022, the Biden Department of Homeland Security, despite the demise of the Disinformation Governance Board, stubbornly insisted that efforts to censor “disinformation” would continue because of alleged “attacks against communications infrastructure” online.
The newly revealed document seemingly showing the start of the “critical infrastructure” censorship excuse is also concerning in light of OSF’s involvement. As MRC Free Speech America showed in a May 2024 study, George Soros poured a staggering $80 million into groups that called for Big Tech censorship before the 2024 election. But Soros’s censorship efforts in collusion with the government to enforce Big Tech censorship apparently go back much farther than 2024.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
