'I am furious': former vocalist in Harry Potter-themed musical ensemble wages unprecedented assault on U.S. justice system

Nina Jankowicz, the Democratic activist who briefly served as "disinformation czar" under former president Joe Biden, is soliciting donations after losing her defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Jankowicz lashed out earlier this week when a federal appeals court upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss her case. "I am furious," she ranted hysterically on her Substack page, Wiczipedia, while announcing the "sad" news of her defeat. She urged followers to open their wallets and donate via the GoFundMe she launched to help pay her legal fees.

Jankowicz, a self-described disinformation expert who supported efforts to suppress reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story, sued Fox News in 2023 for tarnishing her career with criticism that made her feel unsafe. The lawsuit received a glowing writeup in the New York Times, which included a photo of Jankowicz posing defiantly in front of a government building. Jankowicz alleged that Fox News's defamatory coverage forced her to resign in 2022 from the Disinformation Governance Board, the short-lived agency she briefly helmed at the Department of Homeland Security, and caused unspecified harm to her well-being that could only be fixed with a massive financial settlement.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree, which prompted Jankowicz to denounce the U.S. justice system for failing to "meet the moment." She invoked the assassination of Charlie Kirk in an effort to place the court's tragic ruling in the appropriate context. "As the nation reels from the highest profile political assassination in decades, following a year of other high profile acts of political violence, it's hard not to interpret the Third Circuit's decision as a shrug: to the suffering Fox's coverage caused me, to the suffering the network's lies have caused others, and to our suffering democracy, abdicating the role the courts might play in healing our poisoned political discourse," she seethed in an unprecedented assault on the rule of law.

The court's decision was "chilling," Jankowicz argued, because it failed to punish Fox News for manufacturing a "fake controversy" that will "forever affect my life, my career, and my family's safety." While acknowledging that her lawsuit would no longer proceed, she vowed to redouble her efforts to "fight for the truth" with unyielding courage. "I will continue to speak up, to inform, to advocate, and to resist the assault on our rights and freedoms being perpetrated by the Trump Administration and its allies, even as doing so comes at great personal expense and consequence," she crowed.

Jankowicz has repeatedly cast herself as a victim of right-wing outrage since stepping down as "disinformation czar." Days after she resigned, Jankowicz went on MSNBC, the failing left-wing network, to slam her critics for unfairly describing her as a "partisan actor," which she definitely was. In addition to volunteering for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, donating to Democratic candidates, and praising Democrats on social media, Jankowicz was a member of a Harry Potter-themed musical ensemble whose hit song "Nevertheless, I Persisted" was an ode to Democratic senator and racial fabulist Elizabeth Warren.

The disgraced former Biden official also has ties to Taylor Lorenz, the widely celebrated Washington Post reporter who broke the story of Jankowicz's resignation. Since leaving the Post in disgrace in October 2024, Lorenz has endorsed political violence by expressing the "joy" she felt upon learning that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, and describing the alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione, as a "morally good man."

In the days following the court's rejection of Jankowicz's appeal in the Fox News case, her GoFundMe has raised a whopping $1,412. The aggrieved activist said she would use the money to pay for ongoing "legal challenges," while any "excess" funds would be used to alleviate the suffering of other embattled "dissidents." Since going live on Monday, the Substack post and fundraising appeal has accumulated 17 likes, 9 comments, and 5 shares.

In the meantime, Jankowicz will continue to post her insightful thoughts on the internet. Somewhat bizarrely, the esteemed disinformation expert has expressed no interest in commenting on the epidemic of left-wing disinformation that has persuaded many liberal Americans that Kirk's assassin was a MAGA-loving white supremacist. She is hardly the only media professional purporting to specialize in disinformation who has completely missed this story. CNN's preeminent "truth" experts, Daniel Dale and Donie O'Sullivan, are missing in action. Brandy Zadrozny, another so-called journalist who covers disinformation for MSNBC, insisted it was false to suggest that liberals on social media were "cheering" Kirk's death, which is false.

Jankowicz is also the co-founder and CEO of the American Sunlight Project, a left-wing advocacy group that claims to promote transparency in politics yet refuses to disclose its donors. In 2024, the organization accused the Washington Free Beacon of nefariously promoting "deeply antisemitic tropes" by accurately reporting on liberal billionaire George Soros's financial ties to anti-Israel protests on college campuses.