Nina Jankowicz, who once led the Department of Homeland Security board, said that Fox deliberately lied about her and that she was subjected to death threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An expert who once oversaw a Department of Homeland Security disinformation board<\/a> filed a defamation suit Wednesday against Fox News, her lawyer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nina Jankowicz said in the suit, filed in Delaware state court, that she was subjected to violent threats because of Fox News\u2019 portrayal of her and her role, which included insults made on the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFox\u2019s 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,\u201d her attorneys wrote in the suit. \u201cFox chose to lie about Jankowicz deliberately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jankowicz, an author and an expert in disinformation, was appointed executive director of DHS board, which was created in late April 2022. It was an internal working group within the agency with no authority, the suit says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The board’s work was paused just weeks later, on May 18, and\u2002Jankowicz resigned<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said at the time that the board\u2019s purpose was to ensure that DHS followed best practices in combatting disinformation while protecting Americans\u2019 freedom of speech, privacy and civil liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comments on Fox News portrayed her as censoring Americans’ speech, the suit argues. She was called “unhinged\u201d and a “Minister of Truth” in an apparent reference to George Orwell’s dystopian world in “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the suit says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuit included screenshots of comments on Gab and another website, Patriots.win, in which people reacted to Fox broadcasts with comments like \u201ctime to kill them all.\u201d Tweets said she should be executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other direct messages told Jankowicz to kill herself using vulgar language, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her address was also released online, and members of her family were threatened, the suit alleges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuit alleges defamation and seeks compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages; the amounts are not spelled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The coverage created a “completely false reputation concerning government censorship,” the suit alleges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In other words, based on verifiable falsehoods, Fox has made Jankowicz radioactive and deterred others from working with her as they otherwise would,” lawyers argue in the suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox agreed last month to pay $787.5 million<\/a> to settle a defamation case<\/a> brought by Dominion Voting Systems over lies spread on the network about the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A defamation lawsuit Smartmatic, an electronics equipment company, filed against Fox News<\/a> is pending. Smartmatic’s suit seeks $2.7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Fox spokesperson last month cited freedom of the press and said Fox was confident it will prevail in the Smartmatic case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n