HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen called on the Biden administration to disband its Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” before it further chills free speech, calling it “unconstitutional, illegal, and un-American.”

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Attorney General Knudsen and 19 other state attorneys general decried the administration’s attack on the First Amendment. The creation of a “Disinformation Governance Board” violates the constitutional freedoms that state attorneys general are responsible for defending.

“The Disinformation Governance Board, by its very existence, and almost certainly by design, threatens to ‘enforce silence’ when Americans wish to express views disfavored by the Administration. It is therefore already chilling free speech and impeding the political process,” the letter states. “This is unconstitutional, illegal, and un-American. Unless you turn back now and disband this Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board immediately, the undersigned will have no choice but to consider judicial remedies to protect the rights of their citizens.”

The board’s creation itself, which has been compared to the “Ministry of Truth” from George Orwell’s novel 1984, abridges a citizen’s right to express their opinions and disagree with the government, furthering self-censorship rather than protecting freedom of speech. The board’s creation is also another example of federal overreach from the Biden administration as there is no statutory authority to support it.

Read the letter here.