President Joe Biden has pledged to restore transparency to the government. However, recent developments suggest that the reality may be quite different, with the Biden administration selectively withholding information, particularly regarding the 2020 presidential election.
On June 7, journalist Lee Fang unveiled a series of emails that expose Justice Department officials and others discussing strategies to prevent the release of documents pertaining to election interference in 2020.
The contested documents originate from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a nonpartisan initiative established by Stanford University and the University of Washington.
Concerns have been raised by the House Homeland Security Committee regarding the EIP’s collaboration with private organizations to censor social media platforms.
In May, America First Legal, a conservative advocacy group, filed a class action lawsuit against EIP members, alleging their involvement in the “censorship-industrial complex.”
Suspicions have arisen regarding potential political biases within the EIP and its role in the 2020 election. During that time, the EIP developed a system enabling activists to flag social media posts for review by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leading to requests for the removal of such posts.
The obtained emails reveal federal officials reaching out to Kate Starbird, a computer science teacher at the University of Washington, seeking information about CISA documents that had been subject to freedom of information requests. The Justice Department lawyers requested copies of these documents from Starbird to determine whether they should block the requests.
America First Legal believes they contain information about the EIP’s efforts to silence conservative voices on social media during the 2020 election. According to Breitbart, the coalition targeted various right-of-center media outlets as well as President Trump and his sons, Eric and Donald Jr.
If the emails reveal the internal mechanisms employed by the EIP to suppress conservative viewpoints, it could help individuals avoid censorship. Moreover, it has the potential to generate public outrage, especially as the next election cycle gains momentum.
President Biden may be concerned about the impact these documents could have on voters and the political landscape. With the potential to expose how the “deep state” allegedly manipulates the censorship of conservatives, it is understandable why Biden would prefer to keep them concealed from public scrutiny.
