Former Biden disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News over allegations that the network promoted false information about her, The New York Times reported.
Jankowicz’s lawsuit alleges that she was repeatedly defamed by the network in 300 mentions over a period of eight months, The New York Times reported. The suit alleges that hosts such as Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo falsely said her job was to “silence anyone who criticizes the Biden administration” and, as Carlson once said, “get men with guns to tell you to shut up.”
The lawsuit alleges that the Fox News anchors’ remarks about her led to online harassment and threats, and she says she received a series of misogynistic and antisemitic comments, The Times reported.
“This has had an immense impact for my family. I don’t think our security will ever be the same,” Jankowicz said on Wednesday. “I want to make the point that this sort of disinformation and hate campaign doesn’t have a place in American media or American politics; that this isn’t what we stand for.”
🚨Defamation suit against Fox News filed on behalf of Nina Jankowicz has just landed
— Nina was director of the Dept Homeland Security’s short-lived “Disinformation Governance Board”
— Was subject of right-wing attackshttps://t.co/v7wBdgCtIi— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) May 10, 2023
Jankowicz served as the executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) short-lived “Disinformation Governance Board,” which notably attempted to discredit reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The board was put in place to monitor disinformation from foreign governments and agents, particularly Russia, and counter misleading claims about the U.S.-Mexico border.
Jankowicz quickly resigned from the board in May 2022, leading the DHS to put a “pause” on the board. Her lawsuit accused Fox News anchors of falsely saying she was fired, The Times reported.
“Even after achieving their stated goal of driving me out of government and ending the board, they kept using me as a punching bag,” she said, The Times reported. “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.”
Her lawyers requested that Fox News preserve all communications about Jankowicz and her previous position on the board, the outlet reported. One of her attorneys, Rylee Sommers-Flanagan, accused Fox News of having “an absolute disregard” for the truth to increase its ratings. (RELATED: ‘Discomforting’: Elon Musk Reacts To The DHS’ New Disinformation Governance Board)
“Dominion shows us how egregious the internal conversations that are happening at Fox are; it shows us that Fox News has an absolute disregard for truth when it is related to their ratings,” Sommers-Flanagan said.
Fox News recently settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the network of making false and defamatory remarks about its alleged role in suppressing votes for former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election. The network settled the case for $787.5 million on April 18, the day the trial was set to begin.
Jankowicz has notably spread her own fair share of false statements. She claimed the now-discredited Steele Dossier was funded by Republicans in a 2017 tweet, and called Hunter Biden’s laptop a “Trump campaign product” in an ABC News interview in 2020.
She also said in 2022 that Republicans are made up of “disinformers” who “have seized on” issues like Critical Race Theory to spread “disinformation.”