The Division of Homeland Safety has sparked controversy by including to its Intelligence Board a number of members who signed on to the since-debunked 2020 letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop computer story was “Russian disinformation.”
Now, Home Republicans need solutions, saying the brand new additions deliver into query the federal group’s credibility and impartiality.
“Your resolution to nominate members to this group who’ve demonstrated political bias suggests misplaced priorities,” the letter mentioned.
Home Homeland Safety Committee Chairman Mark Inexperienced, R-Tenn., and Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee on counterterrorism, regulation enforcement, and intelligence, despatched the letter to Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas concerning the appointees.
The appointments in query embody former Director of Nationwide Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former Affiliate Deputy Lawyer Common Tashina Gauhar.
The letter factors out they had been among the many intelligence officers that influenced the 2020 presidential election after they “incorrectly implied The New York Submit’s reporting about Hunter Biden’s political influence-peddling was the product of Russian disinformation.”
“That assertion was utilized by numerous media organizations and social media companies to downplay and censor The Submit’s reporting earlier than the 2020 presidential election,” the letter mentioned.
These new members had been added to DHS’ new Homeland Intelligence Consultants Group, which is tasked with offering recommendation to DHS’ Workplace of Intelligence and Evaluation.
“One other member of this newly created group, then-Affiliate Deputy Lawyer Common for the Division of Justice Tashina Gauhar, was extensively concerned within the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into baseless allegations that former President Trump’s marketing campaign colluded with Russia,” the letter mentioned. “These are just some notable examples of regarding actions by a few of the members appointed to the group that decision into query the group’s neutrality.”
The controversy comes because the border stays in disaster with hundreds of thousands of unlawful immigrants coming into the U.S. lately. As The Middle Sq. reported, within the Texas city of Eagle Cross, Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. declared a state of emergency this week as hundreds of migrants have poured into his city.
Thus far, greater than 50 counties in Texas alone have declared a state of emergency. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott formally has declared an invasion of his state citing the hundreds of thousands of migrants, a sentiment he reiterated earlier this week.
Different border states have had comparable troubles, however it’s not simply a problem in border states.
New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams has raised the alarm about his metropolis’s problem in maintaining with the inflow of migrants, one among a number of giant metropolitan areas north of the border feeling the affect of the rise in migrants.
The excessive variety of migrants has turn out to be a political thorn in President Joe Biden’s aspect, and for now it appears prone to stay into the subsequent presidential election.
“Moderately than concentrate on addressing the catastrophic border disaster or [Office of Intelligence & Analysis’] shortcomings to stay as much as its unique function to equip the Homeland Safety Enterprise, particularly, our State, Native, Tribal and Territorial regulation enforcement companions, with well timed intelligence and knowledge, these actions seem to politicize the Division’s homeland safety mission,” the letter mentioned.
The DHS didn’t reply to a request for remark in time for publication.
Initially printed at TheCenterSquare.com
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