---
title: The DHS Disinformation Governance Board (2022)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/
description: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced an internal "Disinformation Governance Board" on 27 April 2022, paused it three weeks later after…
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a contemporary investigator's evidence wall of printed social-media posts, network diagrams and a pinned world map, in the same dossier style as the rest of the archive.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-contemporary-evidence-wall.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# The DHS Disinformation Governance Board (2022)

At a glance

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced an internal "Disinformation Governance Board" on 27 April 2022, paused it three weeks later after criticism from Republican lawmakers…

- **When:** April 27, 2022
- **Actor:** U.S. Department of Homeland Security…
- **Target:** Disinformation from foreign states, human smugglers and cartels, as DHS described it…
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures

Full details

- **Actor:** U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; executive director Nina Jankowicz)
- **Target:** Disinformation from foreign states, human smugglers and cartels, as DHS described it; U.S. public debate, as critics described it

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#what-happened)
- [How it worked](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#how-it-worked)
- [Measured effect](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#measured-effect)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#same-method-test)
- [What the record shows and doesn't](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#what-the-record-shows-and-doesn-t)
- [See also](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#see-also)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/dhs-disinformation-governance-board/#sources)

On this page

**In one line:** the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced an internal "Disinformation Governance Board" on 27 April 2022, paused it three weeks later after criticism from Republican lawmakers, civil-liberties groups and others, and terminated it on 24 August 2022 on the advice of its own advisory council, which found "there is no need for a Disinformation Governance Board."

## What happened

- **September 2021 to February 2022.** Internal DHS documents later released by Senators Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley show plans for the board being drafted as early as September 2021. The charter was drafted in January 2022 and signed by Secretary Mayorkas on 24 February 2022. A steering group had been meeting weekly since February, according to the same documents.
- **27 April 2022.** Mayorkas mentions the board during a budget hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Nina Jankowicz, a researcher on Russian disinformation, is named its executive director.
- **29 April 2022.** Republican members of the House Oversight Committee and Senate Republicans, including Bill Hagerty, send letters asking DHS for the board's charter, budget and contacts with social media companies.
- **1 to 2 May 2022.** DHS says the board will focus on disinformation from Russia and from human smugglers who spread false claims about U.S. border policy to migrants. Mayorkas tells Fox News Sunday and other programmes that DHS "could have done a better job" of communicating what the board is and is not. A DHS fact sheet says the board is an internal working group that "does not have any operational authority or capability".
- **3 May 2022.** Protect Democracy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Knight First Amendment Institute send Mayorkas a joint letter. They accept that disinformation can distort public debate but say the announcement fell short on building trust, showing a commitment to civil rights and explaining itself.
- **18 May 2022.** DHS pauses the board pending a review by the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Jankowicz resigns.
- **June 2022.** Grassley and Hawley publish internal DHS documents they say came from whistleblowers. Among them: early planning papers that named "conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections" and "disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks" as areas of concern, and emails about planned meetings with Twitter and with Meta's head of security policy.
- **24 August 2022.** The Advisory Council unanimously adopts the recommendation of a subcommittee led by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. Mayorkas terminates the board and rescinds its charter the same day.
- **July 2024.** A federal judge dismisses Jankowicz's defamation suit against Fox News, ruling that 36 of the 37 statements at issue were about the board rather than about her, and that the statements were opinion or not provably false. Her lawyers say they will appeal.

![Head-and-shoulders portrait of a man in a dark suit and dark red tie in front of a U.S. flag and the Department of Homeland Security seal](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/dhs-disinformation-governance-board-mayorkas-official-photo.jpg)

*Official portrait of Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, who announced the board on 27 April 2022 and terminated it on 24 August 2022. Photo: Zachary Hupp, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 9 February 2021, public domain.*

![Head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman with dark hair in a blue jacket in front of a U.S. flag and the Department of Homeland Security seal](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/dhs-disinformation-governance-board-jankowicz-official-portrait.jpg)

*Official DHS portrait of Nina Jankowicz, named executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board on 27 April 2022; she resigned on 18 May 2022. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2022, public domain.*

## How it worked

The board existed on paper for about six months and in public for about four weeks. What it was for depends on which document one reads.

- **DHS's public description (May 2022).** An internal working group to coordinate the department's existing disinformation work (in CISA, Customs and Border Protection and elsewhere), to gather "best practices" on threats from foreign state adversaries and cartels, and to make sure protections for free speech, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy were built into that work. It would not remove content or direct anyone to.
- **The earlier planning documents (released June 2022).** These list domestic topics, including election-security conspiracy theories and COVID-19 vaccine and mask claims, and show staff preparing to meet platform companies. Grassley and Hawley say this shows the board was aimed at Americans' speech. DHS says it was "never about censorship or policing speech in any manner".
- **What it produced.** No public output. No report, label, takedown request or list issued by the board has been documented. The board was paused before its first public product.

No FRAME technique is tagged on this page. The board produced no messaging that can be scored. The dispute over it concerned its name, its remit and whether it would reach Americans' speech, which the positions below record.

![Two-column Federal Register page; the lower half is a Department of Homeland Security notice on new Homeland Security Advisory Council projects, including a subcommittee on disinformation best practices and safeguards](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/dhs-disinformation-governance-board-federal-register-hsac-notice-2022.jpg)

*Federal Register, 26 May 2022, page 32047. The lower part of the page is DHS's notice that on 18 May 2022 the Secretary directed the Homeland Security Advisory Council to set up a subcommittee on "Disinformation Best Practices and Safeguards", the review that led to the board's termination. GovInfo, public domain.*

## Measured effect

There is nothing to measure. The board issued no public product before it was paused, and no evaluation of it exists. The Advisory Council subcommittee judged the department's disinformation work worth continuing but a central board unnecessary. Its recommendation said DHS should build on current programmes rather than create a central body. That is a judgement about structure, not a measured finding about effect.

## Positions on the record

- **DHS and Mayorkas:** the board was a small internal coordinating group with no operational authority, meant to protect civil liberties inside the department's existing work. The department says it was "grossly and intentionally mischaracterized". Mayorkas accepts that the rollout was poorly explained.
- **Nina Jankowicz:** in her resignation letter she writes that "mischaracterizations of the board became a distraction from the Department's vital work". She says on MSNBC that "every characterization of the board that you heard up until now has been incorrect", and tells the Associated Press about violent threats she received after the launch.
- **Republican lawmakers:** Hawley, Grassley and others say the documents show a plan to monitor and suppress Americans' speech with platform help. Hawley introduces a bill to dissolve the board and bar DHS from recreating it. Republican lawmakers and conservative media point to Jankowicz's past public statements on the Hunter Biden laptop and on Christopher Steele.
- **Civil-liberties groups:** the ACLU's Ben Wizner tells ABC News that "the burden is on the government to explain why a Homeland Security Department needs a disinformation board in the first place". The ACLU says it is "skeptical of the government arbitrating truth and falsity". The EFF and the Knight Institute co-sign the 3 May letter. Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a libertarian-leaning group, publishes its own list of open questions.
- **Commentators across the spectrum:** Reason magazine argues that Jankowicz's own record, not her critics, doomed the board. NPR reports the view that the board "fell victim to misinformation" about its purpose. Both are arguments, attributed here to their authors.

## Same-method test

A European interior ministry that set up an unpublicised internal unit on disinformation, whose early drafts named domestic topics such as elections and vaccines, and whose minister then described it publicly as a small coordinating group with no powers, would be recorded the same way: the stated remit, the drafted remit and the absence of any output, side by side. The difference from bodies such as Russia's or China's government rebuttal services ([Government fact-check units: Russia, China, India and Ukraine](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/government-fact-check-units/)) is that the DHS board issued no labels or rulings at all, was stopped within weeks by the government's own advisory council after domestic criticism, and never had legal power over speech. The difference from the State Department's [The State Department's Global Engagement Center (2016 to 2025)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/global-engagement-center/) is that the GEC ran for eight years with a foreign-facing mandate, a budget and published reports.

## What the record shows and doesn't

- **Documented:** the charter's signing date, the April announcement, the fact sheet's wording, the planning documents' listed topics, the pause, the resignation, the Advisory Council's recommendation and the termination.
- **Documented but disputed in meaning:** the planning documents' domestic topics and platform meetings. They show what staff drafted and planned. They do not show any request to remove content, because no such request by the board has been documented.
- **Not shown:** that the board censored anyone, or that it would have. Also not shown: that it would have been a purely internal civil-liberties safeguard. "Ministry of Truth" and "a harmless working group" are both frames laid over a body that never produced anything.

## See also

- [The State Department's Global Engagement Center (2016 to 2025)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/global-engagement-center/) and [The UK's Counter Disinformation Unit and its sister units (2019 to 2024)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/uk-counter-disinformation-unit/): longer-lived government counter-disinformation bodies and the criticism they drew.
- [The debate over counter-disinformation](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/debates/): the wider argument over government roles in countering disinformation, including the Murthy v. Missouri case.
- [Fact-checking and corrections](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/fact-checking/): who decides what is false, and the trust gap between partisans.
- [Countering propaganda](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/countering/): the index of this section.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Official photo of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Secretary_Mayorkas_Official_Photo.jpg), Zachary Hupp, U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Public domain (U.S. government work, DHS employee) |
| Official DHS portrait of Nina Jankowicz, Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nina_Jankowicz_DHS_portrait.jpg), U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Public domain (U.S. government work, DHS employee) |
| Federal Register, vol. 87, no. 102, 26 May 2022, p. 32047: DHS notice "Homeland Security Advisory Council New Projects" | [U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo)](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-05-26/pdf/2022-11279.pdf), Office of the Federal Register / U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Public domain (U.S. government work) |

### Image gaps

- **Mayorkas at the 27 April 2022 hearing, and the DHS fact sheet.** Both are U.S. government works, but no hearing photo was found on Wikimedia Commons and dhs.gov blocked downloads from the build environment, so neither is hosted. **This gap can be filled.**
- **The Advisory Council's final report (24 August 2022).** A U.S. government work, but dhs.gov blocked the download; the Federal Register notice that set up the review is hosted instead.
- **A photo of the DHS headquarters.** The Commons photo of the St. Elizabeths campus was edited with AI fill before upload, so it is not hosted.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Disinformation Governance Board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Board) (overview and timeline, used for orientation)
- [CBS News: Disinformation Governance Board to focus on Russia and the U.S.-Mexico border (May 2022)](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disinformation-governance-board-russia-us-mexico-border/)
- [CNN: Biden administration defends disinformation board from GOP criticism (2 May 2022)](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/05/02/politics/dhs-disinformation-board/index.html)
- [PolitiFact: What we know about DHS' new Disinformation Governance Board (10 May 2022)](https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/10/what-exactly-will-new-dhs-disinformation-governanc/)
- [Fox News: Mayorkas says he "could have done a better job" explaining the board](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mayorkas-better-job-disinformation-board)
- [House Oversight Committee Republicans: letter to Mayorkas (29 April 2022)](https://oversight.house.gov/letter/letter-to-mayorkas-on-disinformation-governance-board/)
- [Senator Hagerty and colleagues: letter to Mayorkas (29 April 2022)](https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Ltr-to-DHS-re-Misinformation-Board.pdf)
- [Protect Democracy, EFF and Knight Institute: letter to Mayorkas (3 May 2022)](https://protectdemocracy.org/2022/05/03/letter-to-dhs-secretary-alejandro-mayorkas-regarding-disinformation-governance-board/)
- [ACLU on X (May 2022)](https://x.com/aclu/status/1522377607324520448)
- [ABC News: DHS pauses disinformation group, slams "gross mischaracterizations"](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dhs-pauses-scrutinized-disinformation-group-review-slams-gross/story?id=84808464)
- [CNN: Nina Jankowicz resigns as board is paused (18 May 2022)](https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/18/politics/dhs-disinformation-board-paused/index.html)
- [NPR: How DHS's disinformation board fell victim to misinformation (21 May 2022)](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/21/1100438703/dhs-disinformation-board-nina-jankowicz)
- [Reason: Nina Jankowicz's record, not her critics, doomed the board (18 May 2022)](https://reason.com/2022/05/18/disinformation-board-nina-jankowicz-taylor-lorenz-pause-dhs/)
- [Americans for Prosperity Foundation: four outstanding questions about the board](https://americansforprosperityfoundation.org/blog/4-questions-disinformation-governance-board/)
- [Senators Hawley and Grassley: whistleblower documents on the board (June 2022)](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-grassley-demand-answers-new-whistleblower-documents-exposing-dhs-disinformation-board/)
- [Senator Grassley: Grassley and Hawley press DHS on the board](https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-hawley-press-dhs-on-disinformation-board-amid-new-revelations-of-efforts-to-leverage-social-media-platforms)
- [Senator Hawley: bill to dissolve the board](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-bill-dissolve-dhs-disinformation-board-disclose-all-documents-related-formation)
- [Homeland Security Advisory Council: Disinformation Best Practices and Safeguards Subcommittee recommendation (2022)](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-07/22_0718_ope_final-interim-recommendation-disinformation-best-practices-safeguards-subcommittee_0.pdf)
- [Homeland Security Advisory Council: minutes of the 24 August 2022 meeting](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-08/22_0824_HSAC_August-Meeting-Minutes.pdf)
- [CNN: DHS shuts down disinformation board (24 August 2022)](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/politics/dhs-disinformation-board-shut-down)
- [HSToday: DHS terminates board after Advisory Council recommendation](https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/dhs-terminates-controversial-disinformation-governance-board-after-homeland-security-advisory-council-recommendation/)
- [NPR: judge dismisses Jankowicz's defamation suit against Fox News (22 July 2024)](https://www.npr.org/2024/07/22/g-s1-12676/hunter-biden-fox-news-lawsuit-nina-jankowicz-disinformation)
- [Deadline: judge tosses defamation lawsuit against Fox News (July 2024)](https://deadline.com/2024/07/fox-news-defamation-lawsuit-disinformation-board-1236018130/)