On Resisting and Persisting
How I Decided to Speak Up and Fight Back
Lately, I have been speaking with people caught up in the reductions in force, withdrawn security clearances, and extra-systemic harassment that has come to characterize the second Trump presidency for many career public servants.
One such person1 sought me out because they are weighing whether to take action against the particular injustice that they are experiencing, and they felt that my ordeal—becoming the target of a disinformation, hate, and harassment campaign and deciding not to stay silent, but fight back—might be instructive for them. Sure, my challenges began while Biden was President, but the playbook used against me beginning in 2022 is the same one being deployed to demonize hundreds of thousands of individual civil servants today.
This person wanted to know: How did I decide to sue Fox News? Why did I choose to speak up about the harassment and threats against me? Did I regret any action I took over the past three-plus years? What have I learned? Part of the reason they were asking was that some folks in similar situations they spoke with were choosing to stay silent and do nothing; they feared taking action would jeopardize their future career prospects.
This echoes a lot of the behavior I’ve seen since January. Folks are hoping that if they keep their heads down, tweak their language a little bit, don’t rock the boat, don’t say anything that might draw attention to them or their organizations, that they might preserve their funding, their organizational status, their access, their stability.
I don’t want to sound like a scold. I know the choice to speak up is an intensely personal one that could have financial and security implications not just for the affected individuals, but for their families. I’ve lived it.
But I also know that burying your head in the sand today will not save you or your future career. When you are personally targeted by the autocratic machine, you don’t get rehabilitated for good behavior. It won’t forget about you. And by the time you choose to fight, you might be standing over the smoldering ruins of the U.S. government. What about your career prospects then?
So, for those Trump targets who are weighing their next steps, I thought my advice might be helpful to you, too.
I began speaking to lawyers about possible pathways to justice immediately after I resigned from DHS, in May 2022. Lawyer-friends, lawyer-colleagues, and even lawyers that I paid consultation fees to were pretty grim. “What happened to you is horrible,” they would always start, “but it’ll blow over. People have short memories.” (Ironically, this was the advice from many within DHS, as well, as the Department justified not responding to the lies about me or my work. It was bad advice.) Defamation suits are long and difficult, particularly as a public figure, they’d caution. Didn’t I just want to move on and spend time with my baby, who was due three weeks after I resigned?
Yes, I wanted that more than anything—but the powerful liars who were using me as their punching bag didn’t let me. Fox News would mention me most weeks for the rest of 2022. Senators would bring me up in hearings about unrelated topics. I would continue to receive threats, be cyberstalked, and be recognized on the street. I would be the first disinformation researcher Jim Jordan subpoenaed to appear before his Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.
In late 2022, I started reaching out to lawyers again, and felt at one point I was acquiring them like trading cards. At one point in 2023, I had a Congressional lawyer, a team of defamation lawyers, a lawyer who specialized in protective orders, a firm responding to a frivolous civil suit, and a tax lawyer, who advised me on the ways to make sure the crowdfunding page I was forced to set up to cover my legal expenses was compliant with tax law.
Lies spread to the largest audience in the country had turned my life upside down. I knew that by suing Fox I might be keeping my family in this insanity for longer. But I also felt like all of the worst possible scenarios, aside from physical violence, had already happened to us. More importantly, it was clear that staying quiet wasn’t stopping more harm from coming our way.
I found a wonderful team of young, righteous lawyers, and in May 2023, we filed suit against Fox. After a lower court granted Fox’s Motion to Dismiss on what we believe were faulty legal grounds, our case is currently being considered by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. I don’t know what will happen with my case, but I do not regret for a second standing up for myself.
The sole regret that I have is allowing myself to be convinced, for a time, that my cause was hopeless. I wish I had started sooner.2
Throughout this process, I have been speaking out, giving sometimes quite painful interviews and reliving the worst moments of my life over and over. I also confronted some of the liars directly, both in my Congressional deposition (the transcript of which I fought to get released), and in a public testimony this past April. I have seen some spikes in harassment when I’ve done this (particularly if Fox News decides to cover whatever I’ve done or said), but again, I have no regrets. It is paramount to defend the truth in the public (and Congressional) record. It is critical that Americans know that viral lies have offline, human consequences. Do I mourn that my media appearances are much less frequently related to my real area of expertise—Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe—than the hate campaign I’ve endured? Sure. But I don’t think keeping quiet would have changed that.
Once MAGA brands you as an enemy, your fortunes shift. No amount of strategic silence will change your new identity, so you may as well lean into it.
I do not think my troubles are over. This week, an X account with over 100,000 followers “reported” that I had been arrested by “Special Forces” (who, crucially, do not have the power to arrest people) at a bar that’s been closed since 2018. (I was not arrested, clearly, but what kind of bizarre country fantasizes about this sort of thing?) I’m on multiple enemies lists curated by leaders in the administration or those close to them, at a time when other alleged enemies are waking up to FBI searches of their homes. But if these goons are going to keep targeting me, I’m not going to make it easy for them. I’m going to keep fighting.
It’s a stretch to say that I look at what’s happened to me as a gift. I would really much rather I ended up with some other U.S. Government job, served an uneventful two years, and left to do some anodyne work at a foreign policy think tank. But when I think about the ways I could be most useful in resisting this increasingly autocratic government, sharing my experience of pushing back with all of you is probably the most impactful.
If you’re weighing taking action and want a sounding board, please reach out.3 I would be happy to talk.
Courage, and solidarity. ✊
To protect their privacy and their agency, I won’t be identifying them, their affiliation, field, or gender, but the particulars aren’t important here. Our experiences—and those of nearly a quarter of a million other former civil servants—have much in common.
Obviously the cases that many civil servants are considering are not defamation cases, but the general principle still holds.
Start getting your online security ducks in a row now. My organization, the American Sunlight Project, put together a checklist for how to do this back in February. My book, HOW TO BE A WOMAN ONLINE, also has a lot of advice on carrying the psychological weight of online abuse.
Oops, sent above accidentally. What I wanted to fully say was: Good for you!!!!! You are standing up for yourself, the truth and anyone anyone following in your footsteps!
wishing you all the best for your courage in what you are doing