Judge Dismisses Libel Lawsuit Against Fox News by Former DHS Disinformation Chief

Official portrait of Nina Jankowicz. (@wiczipedia/Twitter)

A federal judge in Delaware has sided with Fox News to toss a libel lawsuit filed by Nina Jankowicz, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived counter-disinformation division.

The July 22 decision granted the media group’s request to have the case dismissed, saying that 36 of the 37 statements Ms. Jankowicz had flagged as defamatory in her suit referred to the working group she oversaw, rather than her.

Ms. Jankowicz served as the executive director of the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board, which was tasked to coordinate agencies within the department—such as FEMA and Customs and Border Protection—and address false information around disaster responses or human trafficking along the border.

However, the Board triggered strong backlash as many citizens raised concerns about its potential for monitoring and potentially policing online political speech. Some Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators had likened it to the Ministry of Truth, the fictional propaganda and censorship machine in George Orwell’s dystopian political novel, “1984.”

The blowback caused the DHS to shut down the Board in August 2022, just four months after its creation. Ms. Jankowicz resigned from her post before the Board was disbanded.

Ms. Jankowicz argued that Fox News, which extensively covered the Board during and after its brief lifespan, should be held at least partially responsible for the overwhelmingly negative public perception that cost her her job.

“After my position was announced, baseless claims that the board was an Orwellian Ministry of Truth and I was President Biden’s chief censor spread,” she said in a March 2023 video asking for funds to back her lawsuit against Fox.

“Fox News launched overly personalized, false, and incendiary coverage of me, mainstreaming online conspiracy theories to tens of million of Americans,” she added.

In her complaint, Ms. Jankowicz listed 37 instances in which Fox allegedly describing her as a government censor with plans that included giving herself the power to edit other people’s posts on Twitter, now X. On one of those occasions, Ms. Jankowicz’s image was used during a November 2022 segment, in which Fox host Sean Hannity called the board a “department ... dedicated to working with the social media giants for the purpose of policing information.”

Fox asked the court to throw out the case, saying that those statement were “not even about” Ms. Jankowicz but instead address the Board, the DHS, or the Biden administration. In response to that argument, Ms. Jankowicz insisted that talking about the Board was in effect talking about her.

In his July 22 opinion, U.S. Chief Judge Colm Connolly for the District of Delaware agreed with Fox, saying that 36 of the statements in question didn’t personally address Ms. Jankowicz.

The above mentioned statement by Mr. Hannity was also not defamatory because that it was “not false,” Judge Connolly said.

“The Board was formed precisely to police information and to work with non-governmental actors, such as media giants, to accomplish that purpose,” he wrote, citing the Board’s own founding charter.

Fox said in a statement that it is pleased with the outcome.

“This was a politically motivated lawsuit aimed at silencing free speech, and we are pleased with the court’s decision to protect the First Amendment,” a spokesperson for the network said.

Attorneys for Ms. Jankowicz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.