With President Joe Biden trailing former President Donald Trump by big margins in multiple opinion polls, Biden’s administration signaled recently that it may seek to end some weaponization of the federal government against conservatives.
The Department of Homeland Security closed down an internal agency filled with supposed national security experts after critics claimed the outfit simply shilled for Democratic talking points.
The move came in response to a lawsuit filed by conservative activists.
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According to the lawsuit, the DHS created the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, or HIEG, last September to offer advice on intelligence and national security efforts.
Immediately after DHS formed the group, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Rick Scott (R-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) sent a letter to Secretary Mayorkas demanding “DHS immediately rescind the appointments of these known purveyors of disinformation to the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.”
Two months later, America First Legal, a group co-founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell sued the DHS, the internal agency, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Their lawsuit claimed that the HIEG violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. That law mandates that advisory committees be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view.”
It also requires that such groups ensure that “the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest.”
In their lawsuit, the AFL and Grenell asserted that the HIEG was made up of Biden’s political allies.
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“Most members have applauded the Administration’s decisions and fervidly condemned former President Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy,” the plaintiffs said in court records.
“They have overwhelmingly donated to President Biden or other Democrats. Defendant Mayorkas selected members that are agreeable, not balanced,” the lawsuit further claimed.
The plaintiffs noted in court records that of the HIEG’s 17 members, 13 had a history of making political contributions. Collectively, that group made 945 total contributions to candidates. Of those, 98.6% went to Democrats.
AFL and Grenell also noted that some HIEG members were among the so-called intel experts that signed an open letter in October 2020 that dismissed the New York Post’s damning reporting of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
“Thanks to the courage of Ric Grenell in standing up to the Deep State, we have just achieved an unqualified legal victory over Mayorkas and Biden. As a result of our lawsuit in federal court, DHS is surrendering in total to our demands: they are closing down their new partisan intelligence board featuring Clapper and Brennan — which would have been used to promote censored, unethical spying, and gross civil rights invasions of political enemies — and they are surrendering their documents, handing them over to our possession. We won. We beat Biden and DHS.” said Stephen Miller.
“The partisanship and corruption coming out of the Biden Administration must be challenged in court, not just through public complaining. Stephen Miller’s America First Legal is doing just that – taking the Biden Administration to court when they manipulate the law for their personal political gain. Thank God Stephen created this organization. DHS just surrendered because they knew the America First Legal team was right, and Biden’s team broke the law.” said Ric Grenell.
As the Tampa Free Press reported in December 2022, 51 former high-level intelligence community officials had ripped the Post, publicly declaring in the letter, “Our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
The letter was signed by notorious anti-Trumpers like national intelligence director James Clapper, former NSA director Mike Hayden, and former CIA chiefs Leon Panetta and John Brennan.
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But it was all revealed as a lie.
The left-wing media, led by The New York Times and CBS News, eventually begrudgingly admitted the laptop’s contents were legitimate and left by Hunter himself, not Russian operatives.
The Post shamed the group as “spies who lie.”
On Thursday, the Biden administration agreed to shut down the HIEG within 30 days, although it did not admit any wrongdoing. The plaintiffs, in turn, agreed to drop the lawsuit.
“Thanks to the courage of Ric Grenell in standing up to the Deep State, we have just achieved an unqualified legal victory over Mayorkas and Biden. As a result of our lawsuit in federal court, DHS is surrendering in total to our demands,” Miller said in a statement.
The “partisan” HIEG, he added, “would have been used to promote censored, unethical spying, and gross civil rights invasions of political enemies.”
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