The Biden administration's pick to run the newly established Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security said last year that the outcry over critical race theory in public schools was caused by disinformation.

Nina Jankowicz, who has been tapped to run the controversial new board, made the comments during a lecture at the annual meeting of the City Club of Cleveland in late October 2021, when the issue of critical race theory in schools had become a dominant topic in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election.

"Critical race theory has become one of those hot-button issues that the Republicans and other disinformers that are engaged in disinformation for profit ... have seized on," Jankowicz said in the recently unearthed video.

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS DISINFORMATION BOARD: 'I'M NOT SURE WHO OPPOSES THAT'

Jankowicz also said that the outcry over critical race theory was an example of "weaponizing people's emotion" and that "plenty of media outlets" were profiting off of critical race theory stories.

Critical race theory, which says that American institutions and culture are systemically racist and oppressive to racial minorities, has been a source of national controversy for over a year due to the outcry from parents who were concerned about its incorporation into public schools.

Democratic politicians and progressive activists have repeatedly claimed that the theory is not taught in public schools. But school districts across the country have come under fire for training teachers on how to incorporate aspects of the theory into public school curricula, even though no school is explicitly offering a class on the theory.

The Biden administration's creation of the Disinformation Governance Board has drawn significant criticism, with some comparing the board to the Ministry of Truth described in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation to defund the board, even as the White House has defended the initiative as "apolitical."

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Jankowicz's appointment to lead the board has also been fraught with criticism due to previous statements amplifying various claims from the discredited anti-Trump Steele dossier.