Since their inception, the Democrat-led Biden administration’s Homeland Intelligence Experts Group – a specialized security collective within the Department of Homeland Security – drew controversy. Notably when it was revealed that several members denied the validity of critical stories surrounding the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Conservative organizations struck back in a bid to maintain truth and justice. The Epoch Times highlighted how DHS pulled together this group in September 2023, with a mission to provide significant guidance on security and intelligence policies.
By November, a conservative strong-arm organization, America First Legal (AFL), led by former Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, stepped up. Seeing blatant mismatches in the group’s representation, AFL and Grenell filed a robust lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and the new advisory group.
According to the lawsuit, the advisory group was in violation of several provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). FACA’s Section 5 regulates the balance of viewpoints within any advisory committee. Ensuring this balance is fundamental to preventing inappropriate influence from those who appoint the committee or any special interest groups. The cornerstone of AFL’s argument was that the Experts Group had been warped into a political tool for the Biden Administration.
AFL contended in their lawsuit, the Experts Group was a cabal of political allies to the Biden administration. These members, unashamed in their praise of administration’s decisions, ardently denounced former President Trump’s pragmatic America First approach to foreign policy. This deep-rooted bias, AFL argued, was a direct violation of FACA, which requires members to be balanced rather than merely agreeable.
The biased arrangements of this advisory group were unmistakable. A majority of the members showed evident partisan leanings, with substantial donations to President Biden or other leading Democrats. An open letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation even carried multiple signatories from the group, resulting in alarming implications for the group’s objectivity.
The panel, initially comprising seventeen members, was stacked against diverse ideas and viewpoints. This lack of representative fairness even prompted former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, and ex-Director of the CIA, John Brennan, to sign the notorious ‘Letter of 51′. Leveraging their intelligence credentials, they categorically rejected the Hunter Biden laptop saga, ahead of the rollercoaster 2020 election.
The partisan bias did not end there. Another panel member, Tashina Gauhar, was directly implicated in the 2016 Trump–Russia investigation probe. She had a history of involvement with the FBI’s partisan investigation into the unfounded allegations associating Trump’s campaign with Russia collusion before the 2016 election. The lawsuit raised damning questions about her role in the FISA applications employed to spy on the Trump campaign.
In an iconic win for truthfulness and representation, both parties agreed to a settlement. The Department of Homeland Security consented to disband the group within a month. A significant condition of this joint settlement was that this experts’ group will hold no future meetings and will never be restored contrary to the provisions of FACA or the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
To further enforce transparency, the Department of Homeland Security will provide AFL access to the group’s past meeting agendas and minutes. All this information will be handed over within a fortnight. Thanks to these definitive concessions, AFL agreed to voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit, thereby solidifying the monumental agreement.
Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal, didn’t mince words when declaring unqualified victory over Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden. He paid homage to the courage of Ric Grenell, praising his challenging the Deep State. He proudly patriotically declared that the DHS had capitulated entirely to their demands as a result of the federal court lawsuit.
Miller raised deep concerns against what he dubbed the ‘partisan’ experts group. He claimed this group was poised to champion censorship, infractions against ethics, and severe civil liberties violations against political adversaries. This victory, Miller believed, had averted such threats.
Transparency of the partisan nature of the panel members came to light when it was discovered that 13 out of 17 members had a demonstrable track record of political contributions. A total of 945 contributions had been made by these members to political office candidates. Astonishingly, 932 contributions, which translates to 98.62 percent, were given to Democrat office candidates.
On the other hand, a meager 12 contributions (1.27 percent) were made to Republican office candidates. This blatant partisan sway confirmed the assertions made in the lawsuit. What should have been a balanced advisory committee ended up being clouded by political bias.
In such conditions, the landmark victory won by America First Legal cannot be overstated. This victory signifies the importance of vigilance and taking action to preserve fairness and equality of political representation. The dissembling of the partisan Homeland Intelligence Experts Group serves as a testament to the importance of upholding the principles that our great nation is built upon.
