White House says disinformation board was paused because it was ‘intentionally mischaracterized’

"DHS said today that they'll be pausing the Disinformation Governance Board. Did the White House play a role at all in perhaps expressing frustration on how it was rolled out, or express any involvement in how it — whether or not it should be paused? And then also some experts have said that it was sort of set up to fail the way it was rolled out. Do you have a response to that?" one reporter asked.

Press Secretary Jean-Pierre noted that the board has never convened, and that the board will not convene while an assessment is done.

"But the department's work across several administrations to address disinformation that threatens the security of our country is critical, and that will indeed continue, and again, neither Nina Jankowicz nor the board have anything to do with the censorship or with removing content from anywhere. Their role is to ensure that national security officials are updated on how misinformation is affecting the threat threat environment. She has strong credentials and a history of calling out misinformation from both the left and the right," said Jean-Pierre.

The reporter pressed Jean-Pierre once again, asking if the White House had a role to play in the pause or the untimely ending of the board.

"No, first of all, like I said, this is what’s happening. There is a pause. We did not have an involvement in this at all," she said.

Later in the press conference, Peter Doocy of Fox News also grilled Jean-Pierre about the board, asking, "last week you guys said that you needed this Disinformation Governance Board at DHS to make sure that freedom of speech is protected across the country, and that these platforms are not used for forms of disinformation. So what changed?"

"The Department of Homeland Security, they began their statement repeating that the board had been intentionally mischaracterized, which is a little bit of what you were asking me, and they were explicit about what it does and doesn't it does not do," responded Jean-Pierre.

"It was never about censorship, policing speech, or removing content from anywhere. Its function was to keep Homeland Security officials aware of how bad actors, including human smugglers, transnational criminal organization and foreign adversaries, could use this information to advance their goals," she continued.

Jean-Pierre noted that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has asked former Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who both serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, to conduct a review, which led to this pause, during which the board will not convene.

"So if it's pausing because you think the board was mischaracterized, then the disinformation board is being shut down because of disinformation? Is that what's happening here?" Doocy asked.

"Look, I mean, the board was put forth for a purpose, right? To make sure that we really did a — really did address what was happening across the country when it came to disinformation," said Jean-Pierre." It's going to pause. There's been a mischaracterizations from outside, outside forces, and so now what we're going to do is going to —we're going to pause it and we're going to do an assessment, but the work does — the work doesn't stop we're still going to continue the work that DHS is still going to continue the work," she said.

On Wednesday morning, The Washington Post released an article stating that the Disinformation Governance Board was placed on a pause, blaming conservative media outlets like The Post Millennial and commentators like Jack Posobiec for its downfall.

Later that morning, Jankowicz released a statement saying that she will be resigning from her post due to the uncertain future of the board, and returning to the public sphere.