The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security,roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terrorism,border security,immigration and customs,cyber security,and disaster prevention and management.
The New York Post is an American conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The Post also operates three online sites,NYPost.com,PageSix.com,a gossip site,and Decider.com,an entertainment site.
Janet Ann Napolitano is an American politician,lawyer,and academic administrator. She served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020,on the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California,Berkeley since 2015,the United States secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 2013,and the governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009.
Michael Thomas McCaul Sr. is an American attorney,politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas's 10th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party,he chaired the House Committee on Homeland Security during the 113th,114th,and 115th Congresses. His district stretches from Austin to Houston.
Jennifer C. Daskal is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Tech,Law,Security Program at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington,D.C. Her work focuses on terrorism,national security,and criminal law.
Mary Ellen Callahan is an American attorney serving as the Assistant Secretary for the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office since August 2023. She was previously the chief of staff to DHS Deputy Secretary John Tien in the Office of the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2021-2023. Callahan had previously served as Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security.
Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas is an American lawyer and politician who is the 7th and current United States Secretary of Homeland Security,serving since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party,Mayorkas previously served as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2009 to 2013,and the 6th Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016.
Elizabeth Neumann is an American former homeland security official. In the Trump administration she served from February 2017 to April 2020 as a senior advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to DHS Secretary John Kelly and Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke,and as DHS Assistant Secretary for Threat Prevention and Security Policy to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen,Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan,and Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf. She served on the Homeland Security Council staff in the George W. Bush administration starting in 2003.
Kirstjen Michele Nielsen is an American attorney who served as United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019. She is a former principal White House deputy chief of staff to President Donald Trump,and was chief of staff to John F. Kelly during his tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across all levels of government,coordinating cybersecurity programs with U.S. states,and improving the government's cybersecurity protections against private and nation-state hackers.
Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney,who served as general counsel and the head of legal,policy,and trust at Twitter. Her role included handling issues such as harassment,misinformation,and harmful speech,and other decisions made by Twitter. On October 27,2022,she was fired by Elon Musk,following his acquisition of Twitter.
Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government,in addition to the computer and social media industries. In 2020,the RAND Corporation was one of the first to release research describing Russia's playbook for interfering in U.S. elections,developed machine-learning tools to detect the interference,and tested strategies to counter Russian interference. In February and August 2020,United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations,US officials,and prominent US individuals,including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden,including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.
Christopher Cox Krebs is an American attorney who served as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States Department of Homeland Security from November 2018 until November 17,2020,when President Donald Trump fired Krebs for contradicting Trump's claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Vanessa Beeley is a British activist and blogger known for sharing conspiracy theories and disinformation about the Syrian civil war and about the Syrian volunteer organisation the White Helmets.
Brian Murphy was the acting United States Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis from March 2018 until August 2,2020.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden,while he was vice president of the United States,improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son,Hunter Biden,who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal,which led to Trump's first impeachment,these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign,and later in an effort to impeach him.
In the aftermath of the January 6 United States Capitol attack,after drawing widespread condemnation from the U.S. Congress,members of his administration,and the media,45th U.S. President Donald Trump released a video-taped statement on January 7 to stop the resignations of his staff and the threats of impeachment or removal from office. In the statement,he condemned the violence at the U.S. Capitol,saying that "a new administration will be inaugurated",which was widely seen as a concession,and his "focus now turns to ensuring a smooth,orderly,and seamless transition of power" to the Joe Biden administration. Vanity Fair reported that Trump was at least partially convinced to make the statement by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC),who told Trump a sufficient number of Senate Republicans would support removing him from office unless he conceded. Kayleigh McEnany,the White House Press Secretary,had attempted to distance the administration from the rioters' behavior in a televised statement earlier in the day. On January 9,The New York Times reported that Trump had told White House aides he regretted committing to an orderly transition of power and would never resign from office. In a March 25 interview on Fox News,Trump defended the Capitol attackers,saying they were patriots who posed "zero threat",and he criticized law enforcement for "persecuting" the rioters.
In October 2020,a controversy arose involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden. The owner of a Delaware computer shop,John Paul Mac Isaac,said that the laptop had been left by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. Mac Isaac also stated that he is legally blind and could not be sure whether the man was actually Hunter Biden. Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election,the New York Post published a front-page story that presented emails from the laptop,alleging they showed corruption by Joe Biden,the Democratic presidential nominee and Hunter Biden's father. According to the New York Post,the story was based on information provided to Rudy Giuliani,the personal attorney of incumbent president and candidate Donald Trump,by Mac Isaac. Forensic analysis later authenticated some of the emails from the laptop,including one of the two emails used by the Post in their initial reporting. Later assertions by Twitter owner Elon Musk and others that the government had ordered the company to suppress the Post story to favor Joe Biden in the weeks leading to the election were not supported by a Twitter Files examination authorized by Musk.
Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example,disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several African countries. Russia,however,denies that it uses disinformation to influence public opinion.
The Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) was an advisory board of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS),announced on April 27,2022. The board's stated function was to protect national security by disseminating guidance to DHS agencies on combating misinformation,malinformation,and disinformation that threatens the security of the homeland. Specific problem areas mentioned by the DHS included false information propagated by human smugglers encouraging migrants to surge to the Mexico–United States border,as well as Russian-state disinformation on election interference and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
