It may seem like a distant memory at this point, but the conservative crusade against disinformation experts really intensified in 2022 with the MAGA movement’s attacks on respected researcher Nina Jankowicz.
Jankowicz was tapped to lead a now-defunct committee within the Department of Homeland Security that would focus on the spread of harmful misinformation and come up with ways to counter it. The panel was scrapped after Republicans — particularly House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan — portrayed Jankowicz as the face of anti-conservative citizenship and waged a smear campaign against her.
Now Jankowicz claps back. After being called to testify before the committee last year, she got help from Democratic committee members in prying loose some of the transcripts, which Jordan released on Friday. The documents undermine claims by the Ohio lawmaker and other Republicans who portray Jankowicz as a liberal weapon.
Just read what Jankowicz told Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, for example, when he asked if there were specific organizations she planned to look to for help combating disinformation.
She said:
Jankowicz even mentioned the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation as an example of an organization she might have considered asking for advice on rooting out misinformation, citing her previous work on the subject.
Later in the statement, she said the board had “no intention to arbitrate, monitor, [or] limit all thoughts.” And she refuted claims about her alleged nefarious intentions by noting that Democrats and Republicans had invited her to testify about her expertise in the past.
“I was a witness at Senator Grassley’s request in 2018, so some Republicans clearly thought I was doing something right,” she said in the statement. “My scholarship was about arming people with truthful information, not about taking away their right to free speech.”
In a press release after the committee shared the statement, Jankowicz called the move a “major victory for transparency and truth” and said it “dispels the lies” about her short stint as executive director of the Disinformation Council.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
