Significant contacts, programs, and other information about the Pennsylvania Department of State’s cooperation with the CISA were turned down by The Federalist.
On July 25, The Federalist requested a Right to Know Request (RTKR ) from the Pennsylvania Department of State, and requested” communications between PA DOS and CISA beginning from March 1, 2024 – present day.”
The request was made in light of The Federalist’s prior reporting that uncovered the state’s association with CISA to “mitigate risks” to elections, including conversation it deems “misinformation”. CISA has been described as the “nerve core” of state censorship activities. The state would not provide further information to The Federalist regarding the nature of the partnership besides stating that “intelligence among the included federal agencies” may be shared. The state not clarified what “intelligence” was being referred to nor what would be done with that knowledge.
Importantly, Secretary of State Al Schmidt is pictured in an message to a large number of people, including those associated with CISA, in an email that was the subject of debate on how to increase “information sharing” at a meeting that took place in which one message was obtained by The Federalist in its RTRK answer.
Because the position stonewalled and then refused to provide any meaningful information about its ongoing work with a censoring company that has targeted completely speech over the years, what the “information” is is still unknown.
The department initially reported to The Federalist on August 1 that the investigation needed to be completed in 30 days. The department stated on August 27 that the inquiry’s completion would take an additional two weeks to” perfect its search for and evaluate of information.” The Federalist granted the improvement. The office informed The Federalist on September 17 that its search for records had been finished, and that it needed to wait until the next day to finish its records assessment. The organization stated that it “may be able to listen to your request by the end of this week.”
Six days later, the office informed The Federalist that it was” nevertheless reviewing the information,” and on September 27, it said it “may be able to answer” to the demand by the following week. The division when once requested “additional days” to make its response. The ministry claimed it needed more time to evaluate its response after The Federalist inquired about it once more on October 14 and then again on October 17.
The Federalist informed the agency on October 18 that it would continue with a story with or without the papers, prompting the agency to submit its answer on October 21. The agency then informed The Federalist that it had waited more than the required amount of time.
However, the information that was shared ended up being nothing more than a summary of CISA’s lecture line, Project 2024, short descriptions and dates, along with planning meetings and events and wishing a CISA representative good health after he broke his leg.
Because The Federalist was denied access to crucial documents by the ministry in connection with its continuous work with the “nerve center” of state censorship operations.
Your request has been denied in part because some documents, which are internal, predecisional deliberations that discuss a examined or proposed legislation or course of action, are also regarded as research, memos, and/or various documents used by the Department’s predecisional deliberations, were withheld, the organization wrote in a email to The Federalist.
Also, your request is denied in part because some of the information requested are not required to be made public because they would increase security risks and introduce the electoral system infrastructure to possible attacks, according to the letter.
The Federalist appealed the government’s decision to deny important data.
The Federalist is not the only one who is kept informed about CISA’s continuous election interference efforts. In March, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan made the announcement that records related to its continuous lawsuit against so-called “misinformation” were included in the Judiciary Committee’s continued lawsuit.
In a letter sent to CISA Director Jen Easterly in September, Jordan claimed that “in addition to other problems, CISA appears to have broken the subpoena’s responsibilities, having simply produced two sporadic works related to Pennsylvania’s 2024 Election Threats Task Force in five weeks, consisting of less than 300 total websites and containing no documents dated after March 6, 2024.”
The Federalist’s election editor, Brianna Lyman. With a degree in International Political Economy, Brianna received her education from Fordham University. Her job has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Following Brianna on X: @briannalyman2