GOP Senator’s New Bill Seeks to Slash DHS Funding ‘Liberal Propaganda’

(LibertySociety.com) – Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has exposed yet another government-funded discriminatory operation against conservatives, and he aims to put a stop to it. On January 17, Hawley sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding information about grants awarded by the agency. One such grant was given to a media lab at Rhode Island University to create “counter-propaganda.” The grant was funded by the agency’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program.

The lab’s application listed several topics that it intended to cover, including several political hot-button topics. Racial justice, immigration, and dispelling theories about the news being fake. DHS accepted the application and gave the Lab $700,000 through the TVTP. Hawley listed another example from the Media Research Center (MRC), which works with conservatives to expose liberal bias in the mainstream media. The group requested documents from DHS through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and discovered that the TVTP Grant Program awarded $350,000 to the Human Rights Center at the University of Dayton to combat “domestic violent extremism and hate movements.”

While the alleged purpose of the grant to the University of Dayton sounds like a legitimate use of TVTP funding, the Human Rights Center previously held a seminar that equated conservative-leaning news organizations with Nazis. Hawley asked Mayorkas to provide information about other grants awarded for similar purposes, the names of individuals who approved the grants, and whether they would be held to account. He also asked Mayorkas to provide the total number of grants awarded to private entities.

On January 22, Hawley introduced the Ending DHS Funding for Liberal Propaganda Act, which would prevent DHS from giving taxpayer money to partisan entities to use for political purposes. A spokesperson for DHS provided a generic statement to Fox News, claiming that the agency’s mission is to keep Americans safe and respect their rights.