Fox News paid $787 million in April to settle a defamation lawsuit over its false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential elections. The payment was meant to put the matter in the rear view mirror.

Yet it continues to reverberate.

A former Biden administration official's defamation suit against Fox, filed in May, is percolating in a federal court in Delaware. Nina Jankowicz argues the network's stars and commentators repeatedly lied about her, even after being told their claims were false.

Jankowicz was a scholar who focused on the harmful effects of misinformation. She was named to head a new advisory body last year called the Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security, but the board was dissolved soon after in a cloud of controversy. Jankowicz says the ensuing abuse from people misinformed about her actions hounded her out of public service.

In fresh court papers filed late Thursday afternoon, she and members of her legal team draw on the case that Fox settled for inspiration.

The Jankowicz case is likely to test - and be tested by - the muscular federal protections for free political speech about public officials, especially opinion, even when it is distortive or untrue. The standard stems from a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision. For Fox to be held liable for defamation, the statements have to be found to be false and damaging, and a jury will have to conclude either Fox knew those statements were false or it had reason to know they...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMidmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm9wYi5vcmcvYXJ0aWNs...