Because scathing letters are about the only teeth Senate Republicans have right now, on Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a strongly worded letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, demanding the firing of three members of the recently-formed "Homeland Intelligence Expert Group." At least three of the members of the group were instrumental in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, which may very well have affected the election. In his letter to Mayorkas, Hawley specifically named former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA senior operations officer Paul Kolbe who are members of the group.

I’m proud to co-lead legislation to ban the Department of Homeland Security from establishing another “Disinformation Governance Board” ever again.

Read more about the bill: https://t.co/ti4QbA1MCk

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) September 19, 2023

After the story came out, 51 former intelligence officials signed on to a letter stating that the story "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." However, the laptop was later verified as authentic and "not manipulated in any way” by the FBI. In a portion of the letter, Hawley pointed this out, writing in part:

As you know, John Brennan, James Clapper, and Paul Kolbe all signed onto the infamous October 2020 letter, which falsely declared the Hunter Biden laptop story to be ‘Russian misinformation. This was a clear attempt to aid then-candidate Joe Biden. Recent investigations have revealed text messages and emails that corroborate the corrupt intent behind the letter’s publication. It is therefore baffling that your Department would regard these individuals as having any remaining credibility with respect to intelligence matters.

Hawley also appeared to imply that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to continue unimpeded to censor any speech that might show the Biden administration in a negative light in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential election writing:

Enlisting the support of these discredited officials as the nation prepares for the 2024 presidential election appears to signal that DHS will continue its attempts to censor speech that is inconvenient to the current Administration.

The formation of the group was announced last week by Mayorkas. According to a statement from DHS, the group is made up of members who hold "a wide range of views and perspectives, with a membership that includes former senior intelligence officials, journalists, and prominent human rights and civil liberties advocates." The announcement goes on to say that:

The Experts Group will meet four times annually and leverage the expertise of each member to provide input on I&A’s most complex problems and challenges, including terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology.

Hawley, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, may suspect something else is afoot. The Committee has asked DHS to hand over any information related to the Intel Experts Group, including formation, meeting minutes, legal reviews regarding the constitutionality of the group's actions, anyone who may have been recruited for the group, and any input the White House might have had regarding forming the group or any possible members by October 15.

More than two-thirds of American voters are worried that their country is turning into a police state – a tyrannical government that engages in mass surveillance, censorship, ideological indoctrination..

More At Rasmussen Reports:https://t.co/NN29rYulK8 pic.twitter.com/jBVmsetsX6

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 24, 2023

The Biden administration has been dancing a fine line on the issue of censorship. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that the Biden administration may have violated the First Amendment by coercing social media platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, to censor information about COVID-19 and elections the administration deemed "misinformation."

Secretary Mayorkas said in a statement after the group was announced that "The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners." But perhaps Sen. Hawley and other Republicans on the Committee are curious, in light of the track record of some of those who make up the membership of the group and the recent appeals court ruling on the Biden administration's relationship with social media, as to what their and Secretary Mayorkas' definition of "security" might be. 

Because Secretary Mayorkas also knows that scathing letters are all Senate Republicans have to work with right now, it is likely a safe bet that Brennan, Clapper, and Kolbe aren't going anywhere.

These people never learn - the Disinformation Board is back, now branded as an “expert group” stocked with the people who assured us the Hunter Biden laptop was fake https://t.co/4zUhE9Qgex

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 28, 2023