In a surprising legal development, Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) disinformation board, has had her lawsuit against Fox News dismissed by a Delaware judge.
Judge Rules in Favor of Fox News
On Monday, court documents revealed that Judge Colm F. Connolly granted Fox's motion to dismiss the case. The ruling highlighted that statements by Fox News personalities, including Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity and former host Tucker Carlson, which Jankowicz claimed were defamatory, were either materially true or related to the board she supervised rather than to her personally.
Mediaite's Jamie Frevele has more information on the lawsuit's allegations:
Jankowicz, a specialist in Russian disinformation, was the former executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board. She claimed that the hosts' commentary accusing her of enforcing government-backed censorship of free speech — which she denied — threatened her personal safety as well as her career, and it resulted in her resigning from the panel.
These accusations were central to her lawsuit.
But the judge was not convinced, writing in his decision on Monday:
Fox contends, and I agree, that Jankowicz has not pleaded facts from which it could plausibly be inferred that the challenged statements regarding intended censorship by Jankowicz are not substantially true. On the contrary, as noted above, censorship is commonly understood to encompass efforts to scrutinize and examine speech in order to suppress certain communications. The Disinformation Governance Board was formed precisely to examine citizens' speech and, in coordination with the private sector, identify “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” D.I. 31-1 at 10. For the reasons discussed above, that I objective is fairly characterized as a form of censorship.
Background on Nina Jankowicz
In 2022, Jankowicz, a known far-left “disinformation researcher” and writer, resigned from her DHS position shortly after taking it up. Her resignation followed intense backlash and criticism, leading the Department of Homeland Security to “pause” the disinformation board's operations.
Conclusion
Fox News praised Monday's decision in a brief statement to Mediaite: “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.”
READ NEXT: Fox News Gets Big Win Over Hunter Biden
