Unelected bureaucrats in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and associated Big Brother federal agencies recently began expanding their censorship to the judiciary. The CIA and Department of Justice teamed up under the pretense of stopping “disinformation” about fraudulent elections and other speech from the right, claiming it extended into the legal system, but so far it’s been used to stamp out concerns of election illegalities by attorneys and plaintiffs. By prohibiting these lawsuits, the Democrats will be able to ensure that Donald Trump and future Republicans do not become president.
The first disinformation task force within the legal system was launched in 2019 at the Arizona Supreme Court. It was full of progressives like Frederic Bellamy, an attorney who said Sean Hannity is disinformation. The task force got its information from the National Center for State Courts, which declared that one of the most “dangerous political themes” is “The justice system ignores voting irregularities and fraud allowing elections to be stolen from certain candidates.”
Former CIA official Susan Spaulding was instrumental in getting it started. Her background includes the usual type of path for a progressive bureaucrat, serving as chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security and part of Harvard University’s Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terror. She moved over to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to continue her busybody work. CSIS is funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The House Judiciary Committee discussed Spaulding in its reportissued last June, “The Weaponization of CISA: How a ‘Cybersecurity’ Agency Colluded With Big Tech and ‘Disinformation’ Partners to Censor Americans.” The report noted how Spaulding wanted not just foreign disinformation stopped — an effort that began due to the Russian collusion hoax — but also domestic. They quoted her, “As … Spaulding …presaged, it was ‘only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about’ CISA’s repeated violations of the First Amendment.”
The report “Beyond the Ballot,” which Spaulding co-authored, encourages the judiciary to continue the exact type of government meddling exposed in the Twitter files. It urged, “There is an immediate need to expand both the content and the reach of threat awareness among practitioners in the justice system so they are cognizant of the threat and can be ready to respond.” It said courts “should establish lines of communication with social media platforms and appropriate federal entities to maintain awareness of the threat.”
The report treats the viewpoints of “right-wing pundits’” as disinformation, criticizing their accusation that “the U.S. justice system is a tool of the ‘deep state.’” It said disinformation must be stamped out that asserts, “The democracy is run by the social elites, and the justice system is a pawn used to advance the political goals of these elites.”
The Arizona Supreme Court’s Task Force on Countering Disinformation issued a report in 2022 that recommendedexpanding a rule that prohibits attorneys from criticizing judges. That rule, which has been adopted by state bars around the country and is frequently used to discipline conservative attorneys, has been denounced as an infringement on the First Amendment.
The progressive Brookings Institution, which drives much of the Democrats’ policy, said that if efforts to censor disinformation are stopped, it could affect the 2024 election. This was nothing more than a disguised way of admitting that getting the truth out about election fraud could allow a Republican to be elected president in 2024. Brookings criticized a court ruling which stopped the collusion between the government and big tech censoring this type of information: “The ruling creates a chilling effect on academic research on disinformation and could potentially endanger the 2024 elections by enabling a wave of disinformation.”
Brookings attacked X for laying off employees engaged in stopping disinformation, and YouTube for reversing some of its policy banning content about election illegalities.
The National Association for Court Management (NACM) and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers (CCPIO) issued a chilling 174-page report in 2020 laying out how the judiciary should influence the media. It advised the judiciary to go around regular journalists and access “new media” instead, since if they don’t, “courts not only undermine public confidence in the effectiveness of their operations but also surrender themselves to the whims of modern ‘journalists’ whose motives and ethics may offer no hindrance to the publication of stories that are unsupported by the facts.”
The word disinformation appeared 12 times in the report, ignoring any sense of irony with this admonition, “To counter this fear of the unknown and the disinformation that arises from it, courts must increasingly assume an active role in transmitting good information about themselves to the public.”
Courts around the country are gradually adopting this approach of stamping out concerns about election illegalities, sanctioning election attorneys who litigate the issues. State bars, which are usually formed as private entities contracted under the authority of state supreme courts, are disbarring election attorneys for bringing lawsuits challenging the illegal activities.
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) issued a paper urging strong discipline against attorneys who bring election lawsuits, holding up as an example a Brazilian court’s treatment of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for his lawsuits alleging election fraud. That court barred Bosonaro from running for office for eight years as punishment. IFES praised proactive moves, “[M]any countries have passed legislation imposing various restrictions on freedom of speech around elections.” IFES praised courts for disciplining attorneys who brought “frivolous” lawsuits alleging election wrongdoing like Rudy Giuliani.
While the House committee report rightfully found that “CISA must be reined in,” it must go further and stop the weaponization of the judiciary to stop efforts against illegal election activity. The committee should hold hearings on these abuses, including state bars targeting election attorneys. Otherwise the election fraud will ensure there are no more Republican presidents.