Bankruptcy judge dismisses case filed by Gateway Pundit, which faces defamation cases over false election claims
Sam Levine at The Guardian:
A judge dismissed a bankruptcy case filed by the Gateway Pundit on Wednesday, saying the far-right outlet did not file the case in good faith. The ruling from US bankruptcy judge Mindy Mora in the southern district of Florida comes as the outlet faces significant defamation cases from two Georgia election workers and a former Dominion Voting Systems employee who say the site spread false claims about them after the 2020 election.
Calling the site’s assets “eye-catching”, Mora noted that they were 22 times the size of its liabilities. The company reported nearly $3.1m in revenue in 2023. “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. There is only the State Court Litigation in which TGP must defend itself. That’s not a basis for bankruptcy relief; it’s the justice system in operation,” Mora wrote. The proceedings had also revealed that the company may have been operating in Florida for three years without a proper business license and could owe back taxes to the state, Mora wrote in her 28-page ruling. The Gateway Pundit declared bankruptcy on 24 April saying it was doing so as a litigation strategy in the defamation cases filed against it. Filing for bankruptcy pauses all civil proceedings against a business. The bankruptcy dismissal means the defamation cases can probably continue.
The bankruptcy filing came as lawyers representing Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two election workers, were completing discovery in their defamation case and had informed the company it intended to take depositions of the Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft and his twin brother, Joe Hoft, who is a contributor. “This is a common tool for reorganization and to consolidate litigation when attacks are coming from all sides. It allows TGP to consolidate this lawfare in one court for ultimate resolution,” Jim Hoft wrote at the time. “While we greatly appreciate the Judge’s careful consideration of the facts of this case, we believe some of the findings are not supported by the existing law or underlying circumstances presented at the hearing or otherwise contained within the record. The Debtor continues to consider its options and will move forward in its legal and business path,” Bart Houston, a lawyer representing the company, said in a statement.
The defamation cases are being closely watched because they are testing whether US libel law can be an effective tool to combat misinformation. The collateral bankruptcy cases are seen as an effort to try to avoid accountability for lying. A judge earlier this month also dismissed a bankruptcy case filed by Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered to pay the two Georgia election workers $148.1m for defaming them last year. After the 2020 election, the Gateway Pundit published several articles falsely saying that Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, both election workers in Fulton county, Georgia, were involved in a plot to scan ballots multiple times and steal the election. The claims were immediately debunked and both women have been cleared of any wrongdoing. The false claims were amplified by Giuliani and other Trump allies and became central to their efforts to overturn the election results. When Trump called Georgia’s top election official and asked him “to find 11,780 votes”, he mentioned Freeman by name.
Judge Mindy Mora dismissed far-right propaganda outlet The Gateway Pundit’s bankruptcy filing on Wednesday because the company filed it for bad faith reasons.