The Department of Homeland Security's controversial plan to create a Disinformation Governance Board helmed by "truth czar" Nina Jankowicz has been "paused," the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz reported on Wednesday.
Lorenz, the self-proclaimed "most online reporter that you can find," buried the lede in a rambling lament about "How the Biden administration let right-wing attacks derail its disinformation efforts." After expending three paragraphs praising Jankowicz, 33, as a so-called expert "in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism" and complaining about the "unrelenting barrage or harassment and abuse" she received from "the right-wing Internet," Lorenz finally reported some news:
Now, just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being "paused," according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story. On Monday, DHS decided to shut down the board, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. By Tuesday morning, Jankowicz had drafted a resignation letter in response to the board's dissolution.
But Tuesday night, Jankowicz was pulled into an urgent call with DHS officials who gave her the choice to stay on, even as the department's work was put on hold because of the backlash it faced, according to multiple people with knowledge of the call. Working groups within DHS focused on mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended. The board could still be shut down pending a review from the Homeland Security Advisory Council. On Wednesday morning, Jankowicz officially resigned from her role within the department.
The so-called pause comes less than two weeks after the Biden administration tapped former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff to advise the disinformation board in response to widespread criticism of Jankowicz and her history of peddling disinformation. Chertoff, however, was also guilty of pushing disinformation. Like Jankowicz, he dismissed the New York Post's story on Hunter Biden's laptop, which resulted in the Post being banned from social media platforms as a "Russian influence op." The New York Times has since authenticated much of the Post's reporting.
Professional journalists, including many who also dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as disinformation, cheered the Biden administration's announcement of the board and the selection of Jankowicz as "truth czar." These so-called defenders of the First Amendment were not the least bit bothered by Jankowicz expressing concern that "free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms" and producing "awful but lawful content" that "law enforcement and legislatures" should "do more" to prevent.
Lorenz, who routinely lies about her real age and has indicated she might be a lizard person, lamented the demise of Jankowicz and the disinformation board some two weeks after lying about being harassed by an editor of the Drudge Report. She is best known for attending a TikTok celeb's 16th birthday party "for work."