A federal judge in Florida threw out a bankruptcy case filed by the Gateway Pundit, ruling that the site, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories, sought bankruptcy protection in “bad faith” to avoid having to pay potential damages in defamation suits related to the site’s reporting on the 2020 election.
The Thursday ruling from U.S. bankruptcy judge Mindy Mora in the Southern District of Florida means that defamation cases from two Georgia election workers, as well as one from a former Dominion Voting Systems executive, can proceed. The defamation cases had been held up while the bankruptcy case was ongoing.
Gateway Pundit wrote a series of articles about the 2020 presidential election amplifying claims that the election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss and former Dominion executive Eric Coomer helped rig the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. Gateway Pundit denies wrongdoing and previously said it was seeking bankruptcy protection to fight against “progressive liberal lawfare attacks” against the site.
“We are pleased that the Court today saw through The Gateway Pundit’s transparent attempt to abuse the bankruptcy process to avoid accountability and granted our motion to dismiss the bankruptcy case,” Brittany Williams, a lawyer at Protect Democracy, said in a statement. The organization is representing Freeman and Moss along with several private law firms and attorneys and the Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic.
Coomer’s attorney did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Gateway Pundit published an article responding to the judge’s decision, which the organization plans to appeal. The piece alleged, referencing an unnamed anonymous source, that the Department of Justice had intervened in the case to influence the judge.
“In this unusual bankruptcy case, truth is at the center of all disputes. Lack of truthful disclosure, theories based upon half-truths, claims for which truth could provide a defense — all possibilities are on display,” Mora wrote in her decision. “Litigation about truth pushed [Gateway Pundit] to file bankruptcy, but that unusual twist does not alter the Court’s duty to remain focused on bankruptcy issues.”
Mora wrote that, far from being financially insolvent, Gateway Pundit’s assets were “eye-catching.” She noted that the company’s assets were 22 times the size of its liabilities. The company reported more than $3 million in revenue in 2023, higher than the previous year, and was on track to continue that trajectory in 2024.
The judge wrote that the “publication of sensational stories has generated healthy revenues” for Gateway Pundit, but that “the viability of that strategy as a long-term business plan … is now in question.” The defamation cases challenge what the judge described as a “brash (and allegedly not fact-checked) reporting style.”
The judge went on to say that if a court ruled against the site in a defamation suit, “then the Gateway Pundit might choose to adopt a more restrained editorial style. That choice could lead to fewer website views, which would likely soften revenue.”
“TGP remains both balance sheet and cash flow solvent. There is no present financial distress, no looming foreclosure sale, no prospect of a market crash,” Mora wrote. The only financial strain resulted from the defamation suits. “That’s not a basis for bankruptcy relief; it’s the justice system in operation.”
Jim Hoft, owner and founder of the Gateway Pundit, has said he started blogging as a hobby in 2004, overseeing significant growth in the site’s traffic, particularly following the 2020 election, which Hoft and his small staff covered extensively.
One of Gateway Pundit’s highest-profile stories of 2020 was published after a volunteer Trump campaign attorney presented a misleading video during a post-election hearing in Georgia. The video purported to show that Freeman and Moss, Freeman’s daughter, had tampered with ballots.
That day, Gateway Pundit published the first of 58 articles on the two women that would appear over the next year and a half, even though Georgia election officials had quickly debunked claims that the pair had engaged in election fraud. Gateway Pundit’s stories cast Freeman and Moss as “crooked” operatives who counted “illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table!”
In 2021, the women sued Gateway Pundit, Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, who is a frequent contributor to the site. Gateway Pundit and the Hofts filed a counterclaim, alleging that the case against them is designed to drive Gateway Pundit out of business. The counterclaim was dismissed in 2023.
A federal jury in 2023 ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay the two women $148 million for his own false claims that they helped steal the election from Trump. His lawyer, Joseph D. Sibley IV, told jurors that Gateway Pundit had been “patient zero” for the false claims.
Coomer sued the site in Colorado in 2020 after it boosted false claims that he was part of an effort to throw the election for Biden.
Gateway Pundit’s parent company, TGP Communications, filed for bankruptcy in April. “We will not be deterred from our mission of remaining fearless and being one of the most trusted independent media outlets in America today. We do not expect that to change,” Jim Hoft wrote at the time.
In her ruling, the Florida judge indicated that the company, which had been based out of Hoft’s home in Missouri, appeared to have been operating in Florida for several years without a license and may owe back taxes there. “Taking Hoft’s sworn testimony at face value, TGP has been doing business in the state of Florida for approximately 3 years without a local business license,” she wrote.
Referring to substantial assets controlled by Hoft, the judge wrote that “it is difficult to tell where TGP ends and Hoft begins.”
She noted a Jensen Beach condo that Hoft purchased for just under $800,000 and a 2021 Porsche Cayenne whose value is over $50,000 as some of the assets “accrued with TGP’s funds.”
In concluding that the case was filed in bad faith, the judge wrote that “the plain statutory language and years of legislative history show that bankruptcy relief is intended to foster equitable goals, not provide a Monopoly-style ‘Get out of jail free’ card.”