The right-wing conspiracy website Gateway Pundit is accused of abusing the bankruptcy process to escape accountability in defamation lawsuits stemming from its false claims about the 2020 election.
Gateway Pundit, founded in St. Louis by brothers Jim and Joe Hoft, in April as it was facing defamation lawsuits in Missouri and Colorado.
In 2021, Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss sued Gateway Pundit in St. Louis after the site published debunked stories accusing them of election fraud that . Former Dominion Voting Systems employee Eric Coomer sued the site in Colorado in 2020 after it .
Lawyers for Freeman, Moss and Coomer this week asked a Florida judge to dismiss the bankruptcy filing, calling it a 鈥減ure litigation tactic鈥� designed to derail their lawsuits.
Hoft has previously been accused of . That, Freeman and Moss鈥� attorney contends, is the true purpose of the bankruptcy.
鈥淭o date, the defendants鈥� strategy in the Missouri litigation has had one goal: delay,鈥� wrote David Blanksy, Freeman and Moss鈥� attorney. 鈥淭his chapter 11 filing is just the newest effort 鈥� in a long line of failed tactics 鈥� to prevent (plaintiffs) from proving their claims in a court of law.鈥�
Vincent Alexander, Coomer鈥檚 attorney, wrote that the bankruptcy filing came just as the Hoft brothers were served with deposition notices in Missouri and soon after .
Hoft announced in April that his company was filing for bankruptcy because of 鈥渢he progressive liberal lawfare attacks against our media outlet.鈥� His attorney, Bart Houston, argues in court filings that the benefit of bankruptcy is 鈥渢o consolidate disparate claims into a single forum for equality of treatment and distribution.鈥�
Gateway Pundit鈥檚 insurance policy, Houston wrote, isn鈥檛 large enough to cover all the expenses needed for two defamation cases.
鈥淚n this case, whichever one of the two pending litigations that reaches trial first will likely have depleted the policy and will get first shot at the remaining assets of the debtor,鈥� Houston wrote. 鈥淭he second place litigation will be left with nothing but a pyrrhic victory.鈥�
If the plaintiffs in the defamation lawsuits are 鈥渄ead set on depletion of the insurance policy, destruction of the debtors business operations and zero payment on account of their claims, then such a result will certainly occur in a dismissal or stay relief,鈥� Houston wrote.
The legal wrangling over bankruptcy echoes the fight between Infowars host Alex Jones and the families of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
A Texas judge ruled last year that Jones can鈥檛 use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1 billion to families who sued over his repeated lies that the school massacre was a hoax. But the bankruptcy filings continue to to get damages, with one family trying to collect assets from Jones鈥� company in a way that other families argue .
Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that , the maker of the opioid OxyContin, cannot move forward because it shields members of the Sackler family, which principally owns the company, from liability for opioid-related claims.
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According to Business Insider, Jim Hoft admitted at a June 17 hearing in the bankruptcy case that he used the company to to purchase a condo in 2021 in Jensen Beach, Florida.
According to court filings, none of that loan has been repaid.
Gateway Pundit, doing business as TGP Communications LLC, also owns a 2021 Porsche Cayenne worth about $54,000. Hoft said during the hearing he has used it as a 鈥渃ompany car.鈥�
Hoft receives a salary from the company of $17,000 a month.
In the nearly two decades since its founding, Gateway Pundit has spread false conspiracies on a wide range of topics, from the 2018 Sandy Hook school shooting to former President Barack Obama鈥檚 birth certificate.
After years of existing largely in the fringes of the right-wing media ecosphere, its profile exploded under Trump, who granted the site .
Hoft was allowed in 2022 to join a lawsuit filed by the Missouri attorney general鈥檚 office that argued the federal government violated the First Amendment in its efforts to combat false, misleading and dangerous information online. Then Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who now serves in the U.S. Senate, argued at the time that Hoft was 鈥渙ne of the most influential online voices in the country鈥� who suffered 鈥渆xtensive government-induced censorship鈥� over issues like COVID-19 and election security.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday , concluding that neither Hoft nor any of the other plaintiffs were able to prove that social media platforms acted due to government coercion. They also failed to demonstrate any harm, the court determined, or substantial risk that they will suffer an injury in the future.
In addition to their defamation lawsuit against Hoft, Freeman and Moss sued former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani over false allegations of fraud tied to the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani鈥檚 attorney tried to distance his client from the violent threats against the Georgia election workers by arguing Gateway Pundit was more responsible, calling the site 鈥溾�� in spreading the conspiracy theory.
In December, Giuliani was ordered to pay Freeman and Moss .
