Jennifer Daskal helped select the board’s controversial director, Nina Jankowicz, and will now advise judges on foreign surveillance legal issues
Jennifer Daskal (flickr.com/photos/newamerica/39221031875)
A Biden administration official who launched the Disinformation Governance Board and served as co-chair of the so-called Ministry of Truth has been appointed to advise the powerful Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, prompting concerns from some Republican lawmakers.
The presiding judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review appointed Jennifer Daskal on Feb. 1 to serve as amicus curiae for the court. Amici curiae, known as “friends of the court,” advise judges on legal issues related to foreign surveillance warrants in national security cases. Daskal served as acting principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security under Biden. In that role, she drafted the charter for the Disinformation Governance Board, according to a Jan. 31, 2022 memo.
According to its charter, the board would track and monitor “disinformation” and “misinformation” about election security, “falsehoods surrounding U.S. immigration policy,” and information about “the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks.”
But that prompted swift blowback from lawmakers and the public over concerns the Biden administration would use the board to censor opposing views about those hot-button topics. Nina Jankowicz, whom Daskal helped select as the board’s director, came under fire for pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, and dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “Trump campaign product.”
Daskal’s position on the board, which involved performing “actions necessary and proper for the execution of the Board’s responsibilities,” is raising concerns about her fitness to advise the FISA Court.
“The American people need to have confidence in the people tasked to serve as amici before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) told the Washington Free Beacon about Daskal’s selection.
He highlighted a bill he sponsors, the FISA Accountability Act, which would give Congress a role in selecting amici curiae for the court. Currently, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review appoint amici. Those roles are held by district court judge Anthony Trenga, a Bush appointee, and Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee to U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo.), another Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, grilled Daskal about her disinformation board background at a hearing on May 20.
“You ought to be ashamed of your role in this,” said Schmitt.
Daskal’s appointment as amicus curiae comes amid heightened scrutiny of the FISA Court and the surveillance warrant process, thanks largely to the FBI’s abuse of the FISA system during the Trump-Russia probe.
Federal investigators found that the FBI and Department of Justice lied to the FISA Court to obtain warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2016 and 2017. The FBI relied heavily on the Steele dossier, opposition research funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, to obtain the spy warrants. Investigators have since debunked most of the key allegations in the dossier, written by disgraced former British spy Christopher Steele.
Daskal called in 2017 for President Donald Trump to be investigated for obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. And she expressed support for former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who was later investigated for lying to the FBI about media leaks. McCabe approved of the use of the Steele dossier to obtain the Russiagate FISA warrants.
Grassley criticized the current amicus curiae appointment process at a Jan. 29 Senate hearing, and lamented that the “roster of current Amici contains some people with deeply concerning partisan ties.”
Indeed, the board is packed with anti-Trump attorneys and Democratic donors.
Amy Jeffress, appointed amicus curiae in 2015, serves as former president Joe Biden’s personal attorney, according to reports. Her wedding, to U.S. district court judge Christopher Cooper, was officiated by former attorney general Merrick Garland. Daskal is a longtime Democratic donor. She contributed nearly $2,000 to Biden’s campaign in 2020 and more than $1,800 to Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to campaign finance disclosures.
David Kris, a 2016 amicus curiae selection, alleged in 2018 that Republicans “falsely accused” the FBI of misleading the FISA Court to obtain warrants against Page, the Trump campaign aide. The FISA Court stoked Republican outrage in 2020 by selecting Kris to help the FBI implement reforms to address its wrongdoing during Russiagate.
Mary McCord, appointed amicus curiae in 2021, served as head of the Department of Justice’s national security division during the Trump-Russia probe. In that role, she reviewed and authorized the agency’s applications for the FISA warrants used in the investigation, according to a Department of Justice inspector general report in December 2019.
The FISA Court and Daskal did not respond to requests for comment.
