FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 29, 2023

 Contact: Press_Paul@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343

Dr. Paul, Sen. Scott Lead Letter Demanding Mayorkas Rescind Appointments of Known Disinformation Spreaders to Intelligence Group

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Roger Marshall (R-KS), all members of the of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urging him to immediately rescind the appointments of James Clapper, John Brennan and Paul Kolbe to the newly formed Homeland Intelligence Experts Group. The senators are also demanding answers on how these appointment decisions were made. These individuals are known purveyors of disinformation who asserted, without evidence, that the abandoned laptop of Joe Biden’s son and the voluminous records of incriminating information it contained were “Russian disinformation.”

You can read the full letter to Secretary Mayorkas HERE or below:

Dear Secretary Mayorkas:

It is disheartening, but not surprising, to see the same agency head that pursued a failed attempt to establish an Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – led by Nina Jankowicz, an individual renowned for her dissemination of disinformation online –seek to bring James Clapper, John Brennan, and Paul Kolbe into his agency. The decision to assign individuals known to spread lies and disinformation to a committee intended to advance the intelligence and national security efforts of our country shows the depths of your agency’s, and this administration’s, disrespect for the American people.

These three individuals acted at the direction of, and in coordination with, the political campaign of then-candidate Joe Biden to use the appearance of legitimacy from their former official positions to assert, without evidence, that the abandoned laptop of Joe Biden’s son and the voluminous records of incriminating information it contained were “Russian disinformation.” This knowingly false statement was intended to discredit the legitimacy of the discovery of Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell,” and it provided a willing and eager press corps with a fig leaf to obscure and ignore the criminality, deviancy and corruption of Hunter Biden and, by extension, a politically and ethically compromised Joe Biden.

At best, the written statement issued by Clapper, Brennan, Kolbe and others was misinformation issued under the specious authority of their prior positions of public trust. More likely, it was intentionally disseminated disinformation; a knowingly false and misleading statement intended to prevent the discovery of the truth by the American public. Their conduct in service of the Biden campaign was blatant election interference – plain and simple. Neither Clapper, nor Brennan, nor Kolbe have shown any semblance of contrition for lying to the American public about the laptop and its contents. Brennan and Clapper have even defiantly defended their letter despite the fact the laptop and its incriminating contents have been authenticated and confirmed as belonging to Hunter Biden.

But this was nothing new for James Clapper, who lied under oath to the United States Senate in 2013 to hide the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying operations on millions of Americans.5 As with his perfidious role in obscuring the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop, even after it was authenticated, Clapper has remained defiant about his perjury despite proof of the NSA’s mass surveillance coming to light in recent years. Now, rather than face accountability for his criminal act of lying to Congress, Clapper has been anointed by Joe Biden and you to serve on the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.

Clapper, Brennan, Kolbe and others named to serve on the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group have a well-documented history of acting as radical partisans who recklessly spread disinformation.

Therefore, we, the undersigned Members of the Senates Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (the “Committee”), demand that DHS immediately rescind the appointments of these known purveyors of disinformation to the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.

In addition, as members of the Committee, which is dutifully charged with oversight of your agency, we request the following:

1. All documents and communications between or among officials or employees of the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the President about the establishment of the new Homeland Intelligence Experts Group since January 21, 2021;
2. A list identifying all of the members of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group;
3. Documents sufficient to show the selection process of, and information related to, each of the members of the newly formed Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, including, but not limited to, the criteria used to select the members, any application forms, resumes, the status of members’ security clearances, and assessments surrounding James Clapper’s and John Brennan’s discredited October 19, 2020, public statement;
4. All records related to the department’s conflict of interest assessment for each member;
5. A list of members of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group that will receive salaries, benefits and/or any form of compensation in exchange for their “expertise and perspective” on “I&A’s most complex problems and challenges”; please provide all details related to their compensation package.
6. Will members of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group have a designated office space to conduct their work related to the intelligence group? If so, where will this office space be located? 
7. Will members of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group have access to classified information?
8. What are the specific challenges and threats the Experts Group is predominantly tasked to address? Please describe.
9. What measures has the DHS implemented to ensure that the guidance and recommendations rendered by the Experts Group respect American civil liberties?
10. Unredacted copies of the meeting agendas or topics of discussion scheduled for all meetings of the Experts Group and the dates of those meetings.

We will further urge Chairman Gary Peters to immediately demand your appearance before the Committee in a hearing, at which you will be expected to explain your appointments of these individuals despite their disreputable records of deceit. 

Please respond in an expeditious manner, but no later than 5:00 p.m. on October 05, 2023.

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