The former head of the Department of Homeland Security disinformation board has filed a lawsuit against Fox News for defamation.
Nina Jankowicz filed the suit in Delaware state court on Wednesday, claiming that she had been subject to death threats following comments made about her on the network.
“Fox’s coverage of Jankowicz was neither news nor political commentary; it was cheap, easy entertainment untethered from the facts, designed to make consumers believe that Jankowicz could and would suppress their speech,” Jankowicz's attorneys wrote. “Fox chose to lie about Jankowicz deliberately.”
The DHS board was formed in April 2022 as an internal group that had no authority, but strived to find the best practices in combatting disinformation while protecting freedom of speech and privacy. The board was discontinued just weeks later on May 18, with Jankowicz resigning.
The suit cites incidents on the Fox network where Jankowicz was called "unhinged” and a "Minister of Truth," in a reference to George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984. It also cites threatening comment in response to the segment, one of which reads “time to kill them all.” Jankowicz was also told to kill herself and targeted with vulgar slurs.
Jankowicz's lawyers say that the coverage "completely false reputation concerning government censorship," and that "based on verifiable falsehoods, Fox has made Jankowicz radioactive and deterred others from working with her as they otherwise would."
Fox recently agreed to pay a settlement of $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems for falsehoods the network spread about the 2020 election. Smartmatic, an electronics equipment company, also filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which is still pending.
To Jankowicz, her suit represents more than the implications of the network's disinformation.
“Even after achieving their stated goal of driving me out of government and ending the board, they kept using me as a punching bag,” Jankowicz told The New York Times. “It shouldn’t be something we just accept — that the most powerful cable network in the world can attack individuals willy-nilly and not face any consequences after they ruin their lives.”
