Former Biden Disinfo Czar Loses Defamation Suit Against Fox News, Attacks Justice System

Former President Joe Biden's short-lived "disinformation" czar lost her defamation lawsuit against Fox News and criticized the American justice system for failing her.

Nina Jankowicz, former executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board, took to Substack to lament her legal defeat and attack the justice system for failing to penalize Fox News for its coverage.

"Although Fox News manufactured and fanned the flames of a fake controversy that forced me to resign from my government appointment for my own safety, and although that fake controversy will forever affect my life, my career, and my family’s safety, the court effectively told me to take a hike," Jankowicz posted.

"I’m sure Fox and MAGA hope that this will be the last straw for me, that I will stop working to shine a light on the lies that are corroding our democracy. On paper, this decision may be a win for their side, but they really only win when we leave the fight. I haven’t left yet—through death threats and networked lies and lawsuits — and I won’t leave now."

Jankowicz rose to prominence in 2022 when she was picked to lead the Biden administration's Department of Homeland Security unit tasked with tracking "disinformation" online. She was quickly discredited for spreading false claims about the Hunter Biden laptop and the Steele Dossier, a debunked document that falsely linked President Trump to the Russians. Those claims tracked with Jankowicz's history of partisan Democratic viewpoints.

After only a month on the job, Jankowicz resigned in May 2022 following an avalanche of scrutiny from conservatives. The Biden administration ended the disinformation governance board a couple of months later after concluding it was unnecessary. Fox News led the charge against Jankowicz by covering her regularly during her tenure leading the disinformation governance board.

Jankowicz accused the network of spreading falsehoods about her with inflammatory coverage, leading to threats to her safety. She lambasted the judges of the Third Circuit for asserting that the audience would interpret Fox's coverage as opinion about a politically charged topic.

Jankowicz is now running an organization devoted to fighting against the conservative campaign to combat online censorship. Conservatives spent years fighting online censorship operations during the Biden administration that targeted conservative viewpoints and right-wing commentators.

Earlier this year, she urged the European Union to resist the Trump administration's efforts to suppress speech online. For that reason, Jankowicz criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio during her speech because of his efforts to shutter the State Department's censorship organ.

Earlier this week, the State Department shuttered the remnants of the Global Engagement Center, an office that had been used to censor speech online and support organizations seeking to defund conservative outlets. The move followed a directive from Rubio to close the rebranded version of the GEC that State created at the end of the Biden administration.

In her speech, Jankowicz backed the European Union's stringent tech regulations because of their pressures on social media companies to restrict speech on the basis of "disinformation" and "hate speech."