Several prominent conservatives, including Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis of The Federalist, were targeted by a federal censorship operation during the 2020 election, according to a bombshell report released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, The Federalist reported.
Other notable targets, among others, of the operation — which sought to censor "true information, jokes and satire, and political opinions" — included the social media accounts of former President Donald Trump, Newsmax, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
The interim report describes how the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Global Engagement Center (GEC), which are within the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, respectively, colluded with Stanford University to pressure Big Tech firms into censoring what they said was "disinformation" during the 2020 election.
At the heart of the federal operation was the Elections Integrity Partnership, "a consortium of 'disinformation' academics led by Stanford University's Stanford Internet Observatory" that coordinated with DHS and GEC "to monitor and censor Americans' online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election."
According to the congressional report, the operation was developed "at the request" of CISA during the summer of 2020 and effectively permitted federal officials to "launder [their] censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny," The Federalist reported.
The report stated that "the suppression of conservative politicians and media resulting from this censorship operation deprived countless American voters from exposure to a range of perspectives on the most important political issues in the days and weeks surrounding a general election."
The report added: "Critically, the EIP conducted its censorship operation at the direction of, in collaboration with CISA, a federal government agency actively seeking to undermine free expression and the sitting president. The significance of these facts cannot be overstated."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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