Fox News Scores Court Victory as Defamation Lawsuit Tossed

CBS News

Fox News claimed legal victory on Monday when the defamation lawsuit filed by former “disinformation czar” Nina Jankowicz was dismissed.

A federal judge in Delaware, Judge Colm F. Connolly , dismissed Jankowicz’s complaint that several Fox News hosts — including Maria Bartiromo , Sean Hannity , and former host Tucker Carlson — targeted her during their shows and that she “was repeatedly demeaned and defamed in highly personal language,” according to The New York Times ‘ coverage of her lawsuit last year.

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.

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.

Fox News provided Mediaite with a statement after the decision: “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.”