Biden administration spied on Trump supporters, used tax dollars for anti-conservative propaganda, Sen. Josh Hawley warns

After already having censored conservatives online, the Biden administration has now funded anti-conservative “propaganda” while having the FBI rummage around Trump supporters’ bank accounts, notes a livid Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Separate reports this week revealed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security used $700,000 in anti-terrorism funds to produce “propaganda” to instead counter conservative views – and that the feds have had banks comb their customers’ accounts for transactions by clients using terms such as “Trump” or “MAGA.”

“Individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a Bible, may also have had their transactions flagged,” according to the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government headed by Rep. Jim Jordan.

Meanwhile, “The Department of Homeland Security paid an activist group $700,000 to create self-described propaganda that attacked conservatives, a new investigation found,” reports DailyWire.com.

“DHS used a grant program intended to combat terrorists, called the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Program, to pay activists to write blog posts that criticized Donald Trump and other conservatives under the guise of ‘media literacy,’ the Media Research Center found through public records requests.

“In its funding application, the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab declared that ‘propaganda and misinformation concerning topics including immigration [and] racial justice’ had become ‘disruptive.’ It asked DHS for funding to run ‘community-created counter-propaganda’.”

Such Biden administration surveillance of, and paid propaganda against, conservatives is “off the charts,” “extremely dangerous” and likely illegal, Sen. Hawley says in an exclusive interview with The Lion.

Conservatives are now public enemy No. 1 inside the Biden administration, he warns.

“Absolutely they are. This Homeland Security Department is happy to see the border wide open. This Homeland Security Department is pulling case agents and investigators off of child exploitation cases to send them down to babysit illegal immigrants at the border. But if you’re a conservative or if you just have questions about COVID and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t know if I want to take a fourth and fifth and sixth vaccine,’ guess what: this government is paying people to try to silence you, to try to influence you, to try to come after you. It is outrageous. It is outrageous, and I think it’s probably illegal.”

In a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Hawley calls the propaganda grant “an outrageous use of federal funds and abuse of power. All these funds should be clawed back by the federal government immediately, and anyone involved in making this grant should be fired.”

It’s alarming, Hawley says, that federal agents would have banks comb through customer accounts looking for transactions that indicate their political persuasion – going so far as to use a president’s name as a search word while rooting around indiscriminately for signs of criminality.

“And to say that if you’re somehow associated to [Trump], donated to him, posted about him on social media, we’re going to get into your bank accounts? That’s now the country we live in, where the FBI, and who knows who else in the federal government, is getting into your bank statements because you posted something about Trump or you gave some money to Trump, or you went to a Trump rally some time, or maybe you’re just on Trump’s e-mail list? It is unbelievable.

“And by the way, bank accounts are not open to the federal government to just go look at without a warrant or some legal process. But that’s what’s happening here. These guys didn’t go to court and get warrants. They were able to get bank information directly from the banks. This is unprecedented to my knowledge, and it is extremely dangerous. And by the way, all of the banks ought to be on the hook for this too.

“It is spying. That’s what’s happened here. It’s spying, but it’s illegal spying. You’re not supposed to be able to track Americans without a warrant. You’re not supposed to be able to eavesdrop or wiretap without a warrant. You’re not supposed to be able to get bank information without legal process. There’s none of that here. The FBI goes to the banks and says give us all this stuff. And the banks say, ‘OK, yeah, sure. Here you go. Take all of our confidential information. Look into our clients’ accounts.’ 

“It is outrageous. Again, I think it’s probably illegal, and this is another reason why FBI leadership needs to be cleaned out. This administration has abused authority at every level in every way to try and punish political opponents, to try to silence half of the country or more, and we cannot let them get by with this.”

As for the DHS paying to produce counter-conservative propaganda, The Lion asked Hawley how serious he thinks that is on a scale of 1 to 10.

“It is a 10, off the charts. The Department of Homeland Security is literally paying people to create propaganda – that’s their word, propaganda – against conservatives and anybody who questions them. So, the departments pay people to create propaganda on immigration, on COVID, on vaccine questions. So, if you think the southern border is wide open and it is, and you’re concerned about that, your government’s paying somebody to try to shut you up. 

“I mean, this is unbelievable. I think it probably is illegal. I’ve demanded that the DHS secretary stop it immediately. We need an accounting of every dime that has been spent on this activity. And Mayorkas, he needs to go. He should have been out of office a long time ago.”

Do Hawley’s liberal friends and Democratic colleagues see the dangers in all this that he does? 

“I don’t know. I don’t know if they do. I mean, they don’t act like they do. They seem to think it’s all fine and dandy. Just imagine if the Trump FBI had done this with Hillary – if anybody who used the word ‘Clinton’ in a social media post had their bank accounts looked into.”