Ashley Moody disses Disinfo Board as symbol of Joe Biden’s incompetence

Attorney General Ashley Moody on Thursday took aim at the new federal Disinformation Governance Board during a national television interview.

Moody asserted that by creating this board, the Joe Biden administration and its department of Homeland Security was “building up Oz so you don’t see behind the curtain, and that is folks failing miserably at their jobs.”

Moody, appearing on the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” offered comments that tracked with the outrage of other Florida Republicans, condemning the Department of Homeland Security subdivision in the sharpest possible terms.

“If you look at what’s happening under this administration,” Moody said, “the American people understand the truth. They’re incompetent and ill-purposed.”

Moody took specific issue with the appointed leader of the agency, Wilson Center disinformation fellow Nina Jankowicz, who lumped Republicans in with “other disinformers” during a 2021 defense of critical race theory, a banned topic in Florida classrooms.

“She has no problem defining disinformers, right? She defines it very clearly as Republicans,” Moody asserted

“They just want someone that’s going to come in and start pushing out information that is misleading … false,” Moody said.

The AG said DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas defines disinformation is “what makes us look bad,” with the “we” referring to Republicans. Moody called for Mayorkas to resign months ago, and holds to that position.

Moody is only the latest in a series of Florida Republicans in high dudgeon over the DHS fact clearinghouse.

“You cannot have a Ministry of Truth in this country,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week. “We’re not going to let Biden get away with this one. We will be fighting back.”

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott condemned the proposal as a “terrifying assault” on personal expression.

“Biden’s thought police is something straight out of Orwell’s ‘1984’ and I will do everything in my power to destroy this attack on free speech,” Scott, a former Governor himself, urged.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was also riled about the so-called “speech police.”

“They’re going to be focused on policing speech, on making sure that people can’t share information or say things that they decide is misinformation,” Rubio warned.

Non-partisan sources paint the Disinformation Governance Board in more anodyne terms, meanwhile.

According to Homeland Security Today, the unit will work to counter misinformation and disinformation. The Associated Press notes that the board will scrutinize a wide range of material, including messaging received by undocumented immigrants crossing the Mexican-U.S. border, and election disinformation from foreign countries.