The statement from America First Legal's Senior Counsel and Director of Oversight, Reed D. Rubenstein, goes to the heart of the matter. The lawsuits allege systematic "bureaucratic abuse" from multiple individuals across multiple agencies working in tandem with Big Tech, legacy media, and other useful proxies to avoid public and legal scrutiny. As such, these officials have, in many cases, managed to successfully propagandize information to serve their political goals, all while staying under the radar. In the case of this latest tranche from AFL, the 2020 election was their target. Rubenstein explains:
"The terms "misinformation", "disinformation," and "malinformation" are so dangerously vague that they invite bureaucratic abuse. Based on the evidence disclosed to date, these terms are functioning as the pretext for domestic propaganda operations. State and CISA are not ministries of "truth"—the public has a right to know precisely who decides what information to censor, and how the government is using its private sector allies to shape public opinion."
The newly released documents confirm prior findings and reveal that CISA was withholding knowledge of election administration issues, such as the security of mail-in ballots. Unfortunately, the information CISA withheld was crucial to know about during the election season. CISA and other agencies repeatedly misled the American public about various election-related topics; topics could have swayed public opinion and maybe even affected the results of the 2020 election.
According to AFL, CISA knew of 6 significant risks of serious voter fraud that existed in 2020 and worked overtime with its willing partners to suppress and censor all of it.
One of the most important takeaways is that "despite its awareness of mail-in voting risks, absentee voting challenges, and the harmlessness of in-person voting, CISA continued supporting the unprecedented policy changes" in key states, no less. Notice the wording. These are "policy changes," not laws. Many, if not most, of the changes were reactive, short-sighted, and circumvented state legislatures. In many cases, Secretaries of State made up rules as they went along. While swing states were particularly impactful on the results, CISA supported a nationwide effort to change mail-in voting in 2020 because of the COVID-19 "pandemic."
Elections should be guided by laws, not policy changes. One cannot help but think that a new bar has been set to seduce Americans into believing that any crisis can, going forward, dictate the way we run our elections, laws be damned. Even more alarming is the thought that Americans may not realize why what happened in the U.S. is so bad for our elections. Elections are too important to be conducted by edict and policy. 2020 may have emboldened these "seat of the pants policy changes" as the new rules of the road going forward. After all, there were few, if any, consequences for the ill-conceived changes. Few spoke up, and the ones who did were told they were harassing election officials.
The documents secured by AFL also reveal the legacy media's role in coordinating and legitimizing the changes. Emails obtained by AFL show a "media tour" was rolled out with graphics and all the necessary bells and whistles to sell what CISA was promoting. Remember when CISA stood up its rumor control page, all in the name of critical infrastructure for elections? According to the documents, the press gladly "covered up the evidence, focusing on "CISA's' independence from Trump and CISA Director Chris Kreb's' statements about the security of mail-in ballots' that 'directly contradict' Trump." The public, in many cases, took Kreb at his word.
Last but not least was the "monitoring and censoring" of narratives related to mail-in voting and COVID-19. CISA "contracted Deloitte to report on "Daily Social Media Trends" related to the U.S. Election—including narratives relating to "Vote-By-Mail"—and to flag specific social media posts for CISA's awareness and attention." Twitter and other social media platforms coordinated with the government to flag posts from President Trump and other "narrative resisters" who failed to carry water for D.C. and Big Tech elites. Ticketing systems were implemented to help identify the biggest offenders, including President Trump.
Some would call this the most sinister form of election interference because it actually worked according to the documents. Deloitte's reporting was used by CISA to "significantly encourage" content moderation on various platforms, a violation of the First Amendment. The Twitter Files, the EIP "Long Fuse" report, Missouri v. Biden, and countless UncoverDC articles show all manner of coordination occurred to ensure that CISA and other governmental agencies achieved the goal of convincing Americans that a mass influx of mail-in ballots was one of the most secure ways to conduct a Presidential election. The government most probably tried to hide its secrets because it knows activity like this pushes Constitutional boundaries.
